There is a new term to label doctors and it is called “better-performers”.  Not unlike greyhounds at the dog track, administrators can now walk around us, stare at us, feel our haunches and say to each other, “This one looks like a better-performer”.  The article I found this from was called:

MGMA benchmarking report: Almost 80 percent of practices deemed ‘better-performers’ conduct patient-satisfaction surveys

Once again, the propaganda machine rolls on.  In medicine, we try to discern which studies have been rigorously tested for significance.  We look for any biases.   It seems for the bureaucrats of healthcare, however, this doesn’t matter.   They use third party companies, like the MGMA, to produce crappy surveys in order for them to further their agenda.  In fact, right at the bottom of this article it states:

Note: MGMA surveys depend on voluntary participation and may not be representative of the industry. Readers are urged to review the entire survey report when making conclusions regarding trends or other observations.

In other words, take this whole thing with a grain of salt.  It could be that only the ones who do the patient satisfactions surveys were the ones who volunteered to send information back to the MGMA.  Here are some highlights from this “advertisement”:

 

• Compared with other practices, better-performers were more likely to assess patient satisfaction in their practices and did so more frequently.
• Practices conducted satisfaction surveys to gauge, among other things, their patients’ overall experience, professionalism of the staff, availability of appointments, and quality of care.
• More than half of better-performing medical practices indicated they used patient-satisfaction surveys to evaluate and improve practice operations and educate staff and physicians about behavior.
• Almost 10 percent of better-performing practices cited using patient-satisfaction survey results as “part of physician compensation formula.”
• In June, MGMA released the Physician Compensation Survey Report and results indicated that quality and patient-satisfaction measures appeared to be a small yet emerging component of total compensation for physicians.
• MGMA member Martha Kelley, administrator, Virginia Anesthesia & Perioperative Care Specialists, Newport News, Va., developed a performance-based risk program with a hospital system and tied patient-satisfaction measures to their physicians’ compensation. “We started surveying patients for our own internal quality program several years ago, and now we’re required to meet established criteria with one of our hospitals,” Kelley said. “We share results from our patient-satisfaction survey with the hospital, and this metric now ultimately impacts physician compensation. We appreciate the feedback we receive and are continuing to explore ways in which to serve patients better.”

There you have it.  The future of medicine.  Unproven criteria like quality indicators and patient-satisfaction scores (ACTUALLY THEY ARE HAVE BEEN PROVEN NOT TO IMPROVE PATIENT CARE!) are constantly being pushed on the medical world in order to determine physician compensation.  And in the end, it will be the administrators who will determine which greyhounds to hire and which ones to put down.

Which one are you?