The Health and Human Secretary Inspector General’s office concluded last week that doctors are likely to order more MRIs if they have business ties with the imaging provider.
Shocking, isn’t it?
Modern Healthcare reports that inspector general’s report was a follow-up to a previous finding that MRI claims paid under Medicare’s physician fee schedule increased fourfold from 1995 to 2005.
“The complexity and limited transparency with which these services are provided warrants continued attention to ensure that services are reasonable, necessary and compliant with Medicare statutes and regulations,” the report states.
It’s easy to boil the facts down to “greedy doctors”. In other industries, if a business owner made a 1 million dollar capital investment in state-of-the-art equipment in order to improve his processes and outcomes would she be viewed as “greedy” or smart?
You would have to prove that the state of the art equipment does improve processes and outcomes (compared to MDs who don’t have business ties)… I bet this is not the case since even the physicians w/o their own MRIs order way too many scans.