fiscal incentives

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/ideas-for-fixing-health-care/?ref=health

The higher spending — and much of the growth in spending — is due to the provision of unneeded and sometimes harmful care: hospitalizations that could have been avoided with better primary care; frivolous specialist consults; overuse of diagnostic tests. Unnecessary care can be harmful because hospitals are dangerous places to be, especially if you don’t need to be there. And having more physicians involved in your care makes it harder to know who is responsible: too many cooks can spoil the soup.

A topic of a recent discussion. Aside from the mentioned factors, physicians and other health care providers have fiscal incentives to treat patients in unnecessary segments, as well as provide incomplete or "possible fix-it" diagnoses for their patients. This brings patients back to their physicians, helping health care providers earn more bucks, while also driving up medical costs.