Medicare's new reimbursement system

Kaiser Health News put together a "consumer's guide" to the new reimbursement system that Medicare is rolling out. A key change is that Medicare is trying to shift its payment away from fee-for-service (where doctors get paid more to do more, regardless of whether the additional activity is needed or cost-effective) and towards value-based care. An example of the underlying philosophy is that it's both cheaper and better to treat and coach a patient so that s/he won't need a surgery than it is to have the surgery. An administrative side effect of the way that Medicare is rolling out the new program is that doctors will be encouraged to join larger organizations through increasing penalties (for abstaining) and bonuses (for joining). Quality and efficiency of a practice are easier to evaluate when the practice is larger and the statistics are less likely to be thrown off by a few outliers.

Kaiser Health News reported that Medicare will be posting some information about how doctors are rated on its Physician Compare website. If the rating system is generally accepted by the medical community, it could be very helpful in educating consumers on how to select a provider.