[quote name='elprincipe']Another example of how the incentives in our system are all wrong.[/QUOTE]
Here's another example. In Massachusetts, and probably many other states in the Northeast, doctors are evaluated by the major insurance companies every two years and are rated by how "efficient" we are as providers (i.e. how many tests we order). Based on the rating, the patient's co-pay to see us goes up if we're deemed to be ordering too many tests or goes down if we don't order many tests. Being at a major academic medical center, of course, we tend to order more tests since we get the more difficult patients. Thus, not surprisingly all of us are given "inefficient" ratings and patients have to pay $5-10 more to see us on average.