As pay-for-performance takes hold, get ready for more of this:
Should I start statins on the drooling demented to lower their LDL? Should I preach to paranoid schizophrenics that they must quit smoking? Doing so might help ease my burdens””will it ease theirs? Without a financial incentive, I treated practice guidelines as guidelines, and I treated patients as patients. With financial incentives, will the guidelines become my goal? Will I lose patience for patients who are just a means to my means?
