Maybe it’s because I grew up in a socialist country, or perhaps I am actually from a different planet, but an article in today’s New York Times left me scratching my head.
The article describes how some doctors and medical groups are quietly beginning to consider the cost of treatments they provide or recommend, for instance going with a $50 injection instead of a $2,000 one that is only slightly better.
Honestly, I thought most of us were already doing that…
“We understand that we doctors should be and are stewards of the larger society as well as of the patient in our examination room,” said Dr. Lowell E. Schnipper, the chairman of a task force on value in cancer care at the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
From The New York Times:
Treatment Cost Could Influence Doctors’ Advice:
A Country Doctor Reads: 