Value-Based Purchasing and “Free Lunch Syndrome” | THCB

Value-Based Purchasing and “Free Lunch Syndrome” | THCB
Kip Sullivan again shows how managed care variations do not, in fact, save money.  This is an example of regulations from government (and from insurance companies) raising cost in dollars and in health care results/outcomes.
Kip goes into excruciating detail when he researches this topic but it is important.
He summarizes:  "Most analysts who publish in health policy journals, especially ACO proponents, are obsessed with incentives, especially financial incentives. They routinely accuse doctors and hospitals of caving in to financial incentives at the expense of payers and patients. But managed care proponents show utterly no interest in looking in the mirror and asking what incentives influence their profession and whether those incentives might be warping their judgment. The prevalence of the free lunch syndrome is circumstantial evidence that health policy entrepreneurs and analysts are influenced by a common incentive or set of incentives. I believe money, tenure, and status are among those incentives. Research on my hypothesis is at least as important as research on the incentives that influence physicians and hospitals."