More on bribing doctors to do their job

I recently posted on Dr. Faith Fitzgerald's principaled stand against pay for performance(P4P).
Ironically in the same issue of Internalmedicinenew.com, as Dr. Fitzgerald's article Dr. Christine K Cassel is featured promoting the ABIM scheme to tie "voluntary" reporting of quality data to obtain points to be used to obtain internist recertification and alleged future remuneration from Medicare.

The measurement of quality indicators is part of the ABIM's Practice Improvement Models (PIMs).

Dr. Cassel is trying to sell all of this because the collected quality data can be used"for multiple purposes."

Dr. Fitzgerald talked about "tipping doctors"for doing their duty.So far as regards CMS,there is just a promise of possible tipping in the future. ABIM seems to be making "an offer you can't refuse" by the threat of non-re certification for docs who don't play their quality game.

Some of us remember Dr. Cassel's commentary in the Annals of Internal Medicine in which she supported a flawed Annals article which bashed older docs in which she took the opportunity to promote the ABIM recertification dicta. See here for Dr. Roy Poses's comments regarding that issue. Promoting physician autonomy and the individual doctor patient relationship clearly is not part of the ABIM mission.