“We make those decisions all the time. The decision is not whether or not we will ration care — the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.” –Donald Berwick, MD
When infinite demand exists for finite resources certain decisions have to be made by those responsible for distribution of the resources. It is called “rationing“. And that is what is causing all the palaver about reducing medical care costs. Who decides, how do they decide, and how do the decisions get implemented? “Rationing” has become the political lighting rod of that discussion and any politician or candidate (or even Director-designee of CMS) that does not successfully avoid its use is at great political peril.
A recent thoughtful essay in the NEJM advances the case for substituting “avoidance of waste” for the “R” word. (1) Since 30% of our medical care costs go to tests, treatments, drugs, and medical devices that in truth result in no patient benefit (2), the author argues that, at least, we should first eliminate the non-beneficial expenses. Consumer Reports in cooperation with American Board of Internal Medicine and 16 other medical specialty societies has recently published its list of non-beneficial medical activities for us to avoid. They call the campaign “Choosing Wisely”.
Since many very expensive items can be categorized as new technology, the author also argues for a more rigorous standard for the approval of new technology. New technology currently needs ONLY to prove that is safe and that is better than a placebo. There is NO requirement that it show that it has better outcomes than existing technology. This is true for drugs, PET scanners, linear accelerators, organ and bone marrow transplants, cardiac surgery, and all the different kinds of heart vessel stents. Highly technical, complex, and expensive gene treatment (“personalized medical therapy”) is just now peeking at us around the corner.
If a standard of improved outcome for new technology were in place, how would it be implemented? The ACA established the Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research within CMS to gather comparative outcome data and make recommendations, but the ACA also explicitly denies the CMS the authority to use such recommendations in setting Medicare reimbursement rates!
For example, in the very same issue of the NEJM there is an elegant multi-center study that leads to the implementation questions for a less dramatic, not-quite-so-emotionally-laden, but much more common condition than heart transplants and exotic “savior” cancer drugs; urinary incontinence in women. This study showed beyond a doubt that urodynamic testing results on women who go to a urologist because of urinary stress incontinence had no effect on the outcome of the surgery. The surgery is successful 69-72% of the time whether the urodynamic testing is done or NOT. In other words, the clinical judgement of the urologist in the office is enough to indicate who is likely to benefit from the surgery.
The urodynamic testing, with it’s charge in the U.S. of $640-$1503 depending on the insurance company and region, adds no benefit. The article’s authors (all 34 of them) flatly state that urodynamic testing for women presenting with stress incontinence should not be done. (the same conclusion made by NICE, National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, in the U.K. in 2006). The article does list four specific instances where urodynamic testing might prove helpful; 1) patients with previous surgery for incontinence, 2) presence of neurological disease, 3) patients planning more extensive pelvic-organ relapse corrective surgery, and 4) urge-predominant incontinence rather than stress-incontinence. All of these definable situations can be documented in the medical record for the few patients who have them.
How could such a reasonable, well-founded recommendation to reduce costs without compromising quality be implemented?
1) Medicare could refuse to reimburse for urodynamic tests in uncomplicated stress incontinence patients. This is without doubt the most direct way to save these costs. Private insurance would soon follow suit after the political and medical backlash quieted down (urodynamic studies are almost always done in the urologist’s office and can represent a significant revenue stream to the office). Current ACA language explicitly prohibits this action.
2) ACO’s could implement a practice guideline recommending avoidance of urodynamic testing before usual stress continence surgery. Any resulting cost savings could be shared by all the physicians in that ACO. Urologists would receive a portion of the savings to offset their revenue loss, and they in turn could ask the other specialties in the ACO, “What have you done for us lately, so that we can share in some of your cost savings”.
3) Physician leaders in the urological specialty and academic centers could support educational efforts to inform their members of the non-benefits of urodynamic testing for most patients and wait for its use to fade away under the weight of replicating, confirming studies, and editorial comments.
This third option is often how our practice patterns currently change, but it is a slow process as shown by our continued discussions of the comparative benefits of open heart surgery or various vascular stents. That this “revelation” about the non-benefits of urodynamic testing has been around since 2006, but still warrants an article published in a 2012 NEJM is another clue about the pace of change. Given the inevitability of rationing and the moral repugnance of doing so with broad-brush budget caps monitored by bureaucrats, arbitrary decisions by non-accountable insurance companies, price-based decisions by for-profit drug companies, age-based discrimination, or by economic or social class classifications, we can only hope that we can find a better way.
Comparative Effectiveness Research under the ACA could develop evidence-based standards to be implemented by ACOs of high quality, cost-conscious physicians who would then share in the savings resulting from their hard work of changing practice patterns appropriately. Otherwise, we may have to settle with our current system of “muddling through” and try to be patient with the plodding pace of change as we watch the treasury run dry.
It might help if we did replace “rationing” with “avoidance of waste”, but I don’t hold out too much hope for that. It will take more than one article and a less insipid term to capture our imagination.
In my next blog on July 1, I will describe how to avoid the “F” word.
Refererces:
1. “From an Ethics of Rationing to an Ethics of Waste Avoidance”, Howard Brody, M.D.,Ph.D; NEJM 366;21 May 24, 2012: p. 1949
2. “The Implications fo Regional Variations in Medicare Spending”, Wenneberg et al., Ann Intern Med 2003;138: p. 288
3. “A Randomized Trial of Urodynamic Testing before Stress-Incontinence Surgery”, Nager et al., NEJM 366;21 May 24, 2012: p.1987
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