Evidence-based Care

[Guest guest]

As we spend a good bit of energy (myself certainly included) highlighting the

way insurance

companies mistreat primary care, I thought it only fair to relay this story in

the interest of

balance...

I was talking with a friend of mine who works for a large insurance company. He

told me

that they could pay for every experimental protocol for end-stage cancer request

they

receive each year in the U.S. if they could only get primary care docs in

Wichita (or any other

city of similar size) to stop ordering non-indicated screening labs (lfts, cbcs,

basic lytes, etc)

and CXRs on asymptomatic patients. He said specifically " we love primary care

when it's

done right because it saves us a ton of money - the problem is our experience is

that most

primary care docs don't practice EBM - and for us that's a real hurdle to the

logic of

increasing what we pay them. "

Food for thought...

Chad