I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Our current system makes everyone a liar. Not an outright, giant lie, tell the opposite or truth liar, not even an omitter liar, but a fudge everything a little bit liar. And what’s worse it penalizes the truth tellers and rewards the fudgers. It’s a really really slippery slope we’re on.
I agree with you. Hospitals are incentivized to skate near the edge of the rules. Unfortunately many doctors do as well. My hospital (and several employed doctors) the midsized town of Saginaw skated past the edge and was fined $90,000,000. My concern is that, as you start to bend the rules, it becomes a habit, and the altruism that has defined medical care for 2500 years goes out the window.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Our current system makes everyone a liar. Not an outright, giant lie, tell the opposite or truth liar, not even an omitter liar, but a fudge everything a little bit liar. And what’s worse it penalizes the truth tellers and rewards the fudgers. It’s a really really slippery slope we’re on.
Thank you for this insightful, provocative article, Anthony.
I agree with you. Hospitals are incentivized to skate near the edge of the rules. Unfortunately many doctors do as well. My hospital (and several employed doctors) the midsized town of Saginaw skated past the edge and was fined $90,000,000. My concern is that, as you start to bend the rules, it becomes a habit, and the altruism that has defined medical care for 2500 years goes out the window.