By Evan Falchuk

At Slate, Professors Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe write about why trying to incentivize good medical practice is a mistake:

Almost all doctors want to practice good medicine—at least before they get socialized by the grind of medical school, residency, student debt, malpractice premiums, and the like.Yes, of course, they want to make a good living, but many—perhaps most—doctors would happily trade high compensation for a chance to practice medicine as it should be practiced. So the most important thing to do about incentives is this: Cease and desist. Stop thinking about incentives as the way out of the health care cost explosion.

Think instead about how medical training and practice can nurture and sustain the fragile desire to do the right thing that most students bring with them into medical training.

Our focus on incentives has happened because we have, for decades, mistakenly seen the practice of medicine as a simple economic transaction.  We’ve prioritized money over medicine.   And by focusing on ever more clever ways to design economic incentives, we have systematically undervalued everything that makes for high quality medicine. Things like time with your patient, thinking about his or her problems, consulting with colleagues, and coming up with sound advice.

The professors have it right – read the whole thing.