There is a delicate dance between two partners every day in medicine: the dance between the benefits of innovation and the costs of that innovation. One can’t survive without the other. Patients and doctors benefit from the innovation and corporations benefit by being able to sell more devices to benefit themselves and their stockholders. In a nutshell: this is capitalism.
But increasingly, doctors and patients are being asked to surrender more and more of their personal information non-transparently in a lopsided dance that benefits the corporations and their partners. A once mutual dance turns into an ultimatum.
When a physician’s ability to practice medicine is tied to obtaining Maintenance of Certification® (MOC®) points, the benefit of trading that information for both the patient and physician are less clear. Doctors are threatened with losing their ability to work unless they accrue MOC® points and their patients shoulder more and more of the costs for their healthcare non-transparently to fund the ruse.
So it should come as no surprise that the “tag and release” of physicians at this year’s Heart Rhythm Societies’ 2018 Scientific Sessions in Boston continues unabated. Attendees are not only automatically “opted-in” to data sharing with corporations, but with accrediting agencies, too:
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