Value-Based Reimbursement: Impact of Curtailing Physician Autonomy in Medical Decision Making.

Objective: In this article, we define value in the context of reimbursement and explore the effect of shifting reimbursement paradigms on the decision-making autonomy of a women's imaging radiologist.
Conclusion: The current metrics used for value-based reimbursement such as report turnaround time are surrogate measures that do not measure value directly. The true measure of a physician's value in medicine is accomplishment of better health outcomes, which, in breast imaging, are best achieved with a physician-patient relationship. Complying with evidence-based medicine, which includes data-driven best clinical practices, a physician's clinical expertise, and the patient's values, will improve our science and preserve the art of medicine.