Med Mal News

The New York Times reports that United Healthcare and Aetna, two of the nation's major health insurers, are studying whether to change their policies to reward doctors for sticking with tried-and-true ' and often cheaper ' cancer treatments. Abelson, The New York Times, 10/20/10. The insurers' pilot programs will test whether different payment incentives discourage physicians from working up individualized treatment plans for patients. The thinking is that patients ' whose bills for cancer treatment are so high already that they often have nothing to lose and everything to gain from trying experimental treatments ' are pressuring doctors to go all out in treating their illnesses. Doctors, for their part, currently receive higher fees for ordering expensive treatments. Some feel the proposed changes to the way doctors are reimbursed will help patients by making it less likely that they will undergo unnecessary and painful treatments, while others fear doctors may gain an incentive to steer patients away from treatments that could prolong their lives. Potential malpractice liability for recommending one therapy over another would depend, as always, on questions of whether the therapy ordered met with the standard of care.