Purchasing new equipment and technology has become one of the most expensive aspects of many perioperative and interventional practices. With the advancement of evidence-based primary care, a transition toward patient-specific equipment may be unavoidable. Therefore, the subject of Physician Preference Items (PPI) has become central to healthcare cost-benefit analysis.
Finding the Best
Practitioners’ recruitment is an area that cost evaluation might want to explore. When an institution is hiring a new Orthopaedic Surgeon, the time to learn about her device’s choices is not during her first case calendar! In the long run, preventing confusion can be as simple as learning her choices in advance. There might be other things to which she is vehemently committed.
The surgical cost evaluation team should hear from her about her choices before she is ready to perform an operation. That group may ask her to provide proof that Vendor A is better medically than Vendor B. It’s possible she’s right! Even if new ideas don’t come from the usual decision-makers, that doesn’t mean they are inherently flawed. Premised on her proof, the institution may wish to put this group up for consideration. Accommodating new ideas on PPI can be advantageous at times.
On the other hand, new equipment is frequently introduced because a medical practitioner requests it. Providing the doctor what he wants is a simple strategy to avoid controversy for the institution. Doctors’ salaries aren’t set in stone, and most hospitals can’t afford to meet their every wish. On both parties, sacrifices must be made in order to reach an agreement. This is where evidence is used to make powerful decisions. Statistics, facts, arithmetic, and logic are the only factors that can be used to choose the best course of action.
This method is most effective when conducted with a doctor’s social circle. How often has a doctor stated that Brand E is the greatest option for his patients, only to flip to Brand D when the brand’s agent switches jobs? This medical practitioner’s coworkers can confront him about this in a manner that the cost evaluation team will find challenging but not impossible.
Another prudent approach is to ascertain whether a doctor’s commitment to a particular supplier is motivated by the quality of the vendor’s equipment or by less obvious motives. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released data on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s Open Payments provision.
Using this publicly available data, people can search for amounts paid by suppliers to clinicians and training hospitals. It is entirely reasonable to inquire whether our newest Orthopedist was compensated $2000 in consulting fees last year by Supplier Z. That is not to say she has committed any wrongdoing or cannot advocate for the dealer’s inclusion in the facility’s list. It does, nevertheless, merit some inquiry.
In conclusion, concrete proof practice serves as the ideal spark plug. If the proposed product does not pass the evidence-based standard, it is not truly what is needed. That is a far more reasonable and rational stance.
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