The Medical Professionalism Blog

This week’s Recommended Reading post features the latest on overtreatment and pay-for-performance.

• On the Hasting Center’s Over 65 blog, psychiatrist and health care ethicist James Sabin argues that our search for “magical health care bullets” contributes to ineffective health policy initiatives and to overtreatment of patients.

• An Oncology Times article, “Controlling Spiraling Cancer Costs Called Moral Imperative for Oncologists,” reports on a recent Institute of Medicine meeting on improving the quality of cancer care. Among the efforts the article mentions is the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Choosing Wisely ^® list of tests and procedures that should be discussed by physicians and patients.

• Contributors to the Health Affairs Blog review new research that suggests pay-for-performance and other monetary rewards can undermine physicians’ motivation to improve the quality of health care.