WSJ Live interviews cardiologist Dr. Sandeep Jauhar about his new book, Doctored: The Disillusionment of an American Physician. Jauhar describes “the perverse incentives of our fee-for-service [health care] system that just encourages very high-volume care — not good care — but just a lot of care.”
In an interview with NPR, Jauhar warns young physicians that America’s increasingly profit-driven health care system erodes that aspect of doctoring which is supposed to be about developing quality human relationships, and instead encourages over-testing, over-diagnosis and over-treatment. “Spending 20-30 minutes with a patient might be reimbursed $80, $90, but sending the patient for a nuclear stress test was much more profitable,” Jauhar tells NPR. “A nuclear stress test, at the time when I started working, was reimbursed roughly $800 to $900.”
American Medicine, As Seen Through a Doctor’s Eyes (WSJ Live, August 22, 2014)
Cardiologist Speaks From The Heart About America’s Medical System (NPR Shots, August 19, 2014.)
