Pay some doctors more to save money
One of the strange things about health care in America is the manner in which decisions are made about how different kinds of doctors should get paid for their services. It turns out that the system is controlled in a way most consumers would find unbelievable. As noted by the Wall Street Journal:
Three times a year, 29 doctors gather around a table in a hotel meeting room. Their job is an unusual one: divvying up billions of Medicare dollars.
The group, convened by the American Medical Association, has no official government standing. Members are mostly selected by medical-specialty trade groups. Anyone who attends its meetings must sign a confidentiality agreement.
Yet the influence of the secretive panel, known as the Relative Value Scale Update Committee, is enormous. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversee Medicare, typically follow at least 90% of its recommendations in figuring out how much to pay doctors for their wo