05/17/2012

"When Competitive Bidding Hurts Patients", Boston Physician Criticizes Medicare Bid Program

In a guest editorial criticizing Medicare's bidding program, published in today's New York Times, Boston pulmonologist Dennis Rosen describes the extra care and services required for proper use of home medical equipment and services.

Rosen writes, "This extra care takes time, and time costs money. But sicker patients and unnecessary hospital visits cost far more. And competitive bidding doesn't take these subsequent costs into account. If competitive bidding is predicated on supplying equipment at the lowest possible price, something has to give. And more likely than not, that something will be patient care."  

Rosen is a pediatric pulmonologist and sleep specialist at Children's Hospital Boston. His online op-ed concludes: "On the face of it, competitive bidding sounds like a very good idea... But as a doctor working with patients on the ground, I have doubts about that quality-of-care measure, and I worry that those savings obscure a potentially serious problem."

Read the full text of the online guest editorial, When Competitive Bidding Hurts Patients.