Side Effects: Obamacare Strengthens Compliance-Based Medicine

Kathryn Nix / October 22, 2010

Obamacare alters the practice medicine by putting a stronger emphasis on adherence to government-determined measures of quality.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) already offers hospitals financial incentives to report on their compliance with certain measures of care. These are posted on Hospital Compare, a site where, according to Kaiser Health News, “patients can shop around by putting in their zip codes and the website churns out a list of nearby hospitals, with detail on available services, care outcomes, patient satisfaction ratings and more.”

These quality indicators include some measures of outcome, but they overwhelmingly focus on measuring processes. A recent study by the University of Michigan looked at whether process measures actually indicate that higher quality of care is being achieved. (more…)