Tom Coburn: “People may be saying: Well, how do you know this will work? There is a great little company named MedEncentive. They…”

“People may be saying: Well, how do you know this will work? There is a great little company named MedEncentive. They have been running pilot programs all across the country. Let me explain what they do. They get doctors to agree to follow a certain set of protocols called best practices, and they sign up communities, municipalities, and their employees, and then they do a couple of things. They take them under coverage, and they reward the employee--i.e, the patient--if they will use those doctors. What is unique about this system? One is, after the patient has finished their office visit with the doctor, they have a patient-doctor interactive form they fill out that says: The doctor wants me to take this medicine. I understand this. Here is the reason he wants me to take this. So they have to fill out the form to say they really understood. The other thing is, on the professional side, the practitioner side, they agree to follow the best-practice model in how they treat these patients. That was actually developed by Vanderbilt, where they followed a best-practice guideline which helps them decide what to order, what not to order, what to do, what not to do in terms of what is best for that patient. They can get off if they choose to, if they think in their medical judgment that they need to. What has been the result?…”