The effect of cost containment on the practice of cardiology: predictions.

When health care cost containment is tied to unit pricing, the system may become price-driven rather than care-driven. Although the incentives engendered by unit pricing may not necessarily result in practices detrimental to the young or the patient with relatively pure disease, the potential for adverse effects on the elderly, the poor and the chronically ill is real. Hospitals will soon emphasize quick turnover, efficiency and intensive care. Diagnostic evaluations and chronic disease care will be moved out of hospitals into physician owned-and-operated facilities and out-of-hospital settings, respectively. The health care system will fractionate, and quality control will require restructuring to achieve the present level of quality assurance. Cardiologists, as well as other physicians, will need to alter their teaching style and teaching locations. Better methods for predicting outcomes will need to be developed; we will no longer have the safety net of following a patient closely and altering management plans according to the patient's response. Cost containment may occur under diagnosis related groups, preferred provider organizations, health maintenance organizations and other prepaid or "capped" systems. There are, however, many issues relative to cost versus quality that need to be resolved if severe detrimental effects on care are to be avoided.