Researchers call for new prescribing performance measures

Dartmouth University researchers said current quality measures do not encourage physicians to prescribe the best and most-effective treatments and called for new prescribing performance measures that are tied to payments. Physicians should get incentives to prescribe alternative options, such as diet and exercise, to treat mild hypertension before resorting to drugs, and performance measurements should list the order in which drugs should be tried, according to the report in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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