A Different Application for Productivity Measures, or Has the Difficulty of Measuring Physician Productivity Caused the Federal Deficit To Be Misestimated?

MEDICARE; HEALTH insurance; PRICING; PHYSICIANS; NATIONAL health insurance; MEDICAID

The article discusses the difficulty of measuring physician productivity using the Medicare administered pricing system. There are four factors that complicate any physician-specific productivity measurement. The first is adjusting for quality change in specific physician services. The second factor comes from Medicare's use of administered prices. The third factor is the constant addition of new codes for new services. The fourth factor is the inability to measure hospital capital and labor.