Tossing Organs as Another Way to Game the System

gg

Recently I wrote that half of hospitals have failed and are to be punished and I wanted to bring up how I predicted this in 2011.  At that time I showed how the No Child Left Behind was a travesty and half of America’s schools we’re failing.  Coincidence?  Nostradougus is good but it really wasn’t that hard to see.  Here is what I said five years ago:

Unfortunately, No Child Left Behind has hit a dead end. The parallel with medicine is almost exact. The pay-for-performance philosophy using quality metrics sounds great but there is ample evidence that it is costly and does not work. Let’s get wise and stop this behemoth before it too leads down the same road as No Child Left Behind.

But no one listened to little old me. What happened next?  Well, 2012 became the year of the test scandal as teachers changed test grades in Washington DC, Atlanta and New Jersey.  Human nature.  They didn’t want to look bad and be payed less. Is this happening in healthcare? Absolutely.  Everyday doctors and hospitals are gaming the system trying to look good. Doctors tweak their notes and hospitals play with the data.  It’s a joke. Recently, “hospitals across the United States are throwing away less-than-perfect organs and denying the sickest people lifesaving transplants out of fear that poor surgical outcomes will result in a federal crackdown.” 

Is this what we want?