New Government Pay-for-Performance Policies Punish Doctors Who Care For Obese Patients

It is about time that "doctors who care for obese patients" get punished - at least if they are involved in the IMHO malpractices of diet drugs and fat-person surgery.

Or if they push medically-approved, conventional, AdipOprah-endorsed weight loss approaches since they are doomed to fail and inly serve to generate more money for docs who "treat" the fat. (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here, for starters to understand why)

Pay-for-performance reimbursement of surgeons, intended to reward doctors and hospitals for good patient outcomes, may instead be creating financial incentives for discriminating against obese patients, who are much more likely to suffer expensive complications after even the most routine surgeries, according to new Johns Hopkins research.

Medicare and Medicaid, for example, are increasingly using pay-for-performance formulas to cut doctor's pay when their patients develop infections after surgery. But the Johns Hopkins researchers say there could be negative unintended consequences, because obese patients, who make up about one-third of the population, are at significantly greater risk of complications - notably surgical site infections - following appendectomy and gallbladder removal surgery than non-obese patients. They also cost thousands more dollars to treat than the non-obese.

Note that brontosapiens "cost thousands more dollars to treat than the non-obese."

We shouldn't be paying for their diseases of choice anyway.

It is good that their enablers/"rescuers" will be getting punished (at least let's hope so).