Suffering from a toothaches, a South Carolina woman headed to her local ER a few months ago. The doctor there responded by administering Dilaudid, a powerful intramuscular narcotic typically reserved for cancer-related pain. Why, his nurse queried, was he killing a flea with a sledgehammer? Afraid of malpractice? No, the doc replied, Press Ganey. “My scores last month were low.” I am sure he did not expect that nurse to share this response. Press Ganey is the nation’s leading provider of patient satisfaction surveys, the Yelp equivalent for hospitals and doctors, and a central component of health care reform. Over the past decade the government has fully embraced the “patient is always right” model–these surveys focus on areas like waiting times, pain management and communication skills–betting that increased customer satisfaction will improve the quality of care and reduce costs.
Giving patients exactly what they want, versus what the doctor thinks is right, can be very bad medicine.
Why shouldn’t you grade the quality of your medical care, the way that you pass judgments on other services, whether hotel stays via TripAdvisor or contractors via Angie’s List? The short reason: The current system might just kill you. Many doctors, in order to get high ratings (and a higher salary), overprescribe and over test, just to “satisfy” patients, who probably aren’t qualified to judge their care. And there’s a financial cost, as flawed survey methods and the decisions they induce, produce billions more in waste. It’s a case of good intentions gone badly awry–and it’s only getting worse.
This all leads back to the cost of treatment. Unneeded, unfocused ER visits are high dollar mistakes. Avoiding 1 unneeded ER visit can far exceed the cost of having a case manager on your case to make sure needs are met and unneeded visits to the ER are avoided.
References: Kai Falkenberg – Contributor for Forbes: Why Rating Your Doctor Is Bad for Your Health