Jul 11, 2012 – Modification

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ANCHOR LEAD: THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT HELPS EMPOWER EFFORTS TO IMPROVE HEALTHCARE, ELIZABETH TRACEY REPORTS

Fee for service is how most of our current healthcare is provided: you go to see your physician and he or she charges you a fee. Many critics feel this system incentivizes too many procedures and tests, and contributes a lot to overinflated medical costs. Paul Rothman, dean and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine, says the recently upheld Affordable Care Act has provisions to help in the development of a better system.

ROTHMAN: I think we don’t know the best way to provide efficient care. No one does, and I think Hopkins is going to help lead the way to try to develop a system of care that is efficient, especially in terms of cost, but in addition, we can’t forget that we have to provide the best care for patients, that’s safe, of high quality, so to be able to do that in a cost effective way, I don’t think anyone knows how to do that right, and so Hopkins, like many other medical centers in the country, are going to try to develop the best ways to do that over the next several years.  :31

At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.