How to pay family doctors

This is the concept of “cream skimming,” a problem that is not easy to deal with and that must be counteracted effectively for any system of prospective payment to be compatible with the equity objective that is fundamental to the way Canadians want their healthcare system to operate. [...] The trick is to find observable factors that will predict the amount of care that the patient will need in the future, but that are not influenced by the decisions doctors make about the person’s care today. [...] The Auditor General’s a restriction might enhance the effectiveness of criticisms of the capitation initiative were based on capitation in strengthening the primary care system, its relatively high cost and on data suggesting that and that governments should consider moving in it had not made much difference in patients’ access that direction.8 to a regular family doctor or in the patterns of care [...] Although this change half of all patients who are part of the Ontario 8 Further, a number of reviewers of this Commentary pointed out that Ontario’s reforms did not ensure that the expansion of the capitation system was accompanied by public accountability mechanisms to encourage a high level of patient care quality. [...] Commissioned Care Many are not expected to have a long-standing relationship with their patients.9 Given this, In basic economic theory, one simple answer to paying specialists on the basis of fee for service the question of what to do in a market with excess is reasonable: it gives them an incentive to be demand is to allow the market price to rise, so as to productive, in the sense of treating m