This bonus was set up to better diagnose a disease in a country where nearly 50% of patients with dementia go undetected.
“Shocking”! In England, general practitioners are standing up against a measure put in place by the NHS (the United Kingdom’s public health system): giving a premium of 55 pounds, or about 70 euros, for each diagnosis of dementia. Many doctors have spoken in the British press to oppose this measure which they consider unethical of their profession. Mainly they believe that it could lead to misdiagnosis of healthy patients.
This measure is in fact an attempt by the British government to tackle dementia which is very misdiagnosed in Britain: around 850,000 people are said to have dementia, but only 45% of them would be diagnosed. Faced with these poor results, the Minister of Health Jeremy Hunt has pledged that two thirds of patients will be diagnosed by 2015 and therefore implemented this measure – which runs until next March – supposed to encourage doctors. According to Daily Mail, doctors could choose whether they wanted to pay themselves this bonus as a salary or use it for running costs. Health experts have estimated that 90,000 patients could benefit from an early diagnosis of their disease, or 12 per general practitioner.
In France, compensation on target
While there is no diagnostic bonus in France, the remuneration of general practitioners based on the achievement of public health objectives (ROSP), was implemented two years ago, to encourage better supported. In 2013, French GPs received an average premium of nearly 5,800 euros, which corresponds to an increase of 6.4% in 2012 income. And the ROSP cost Health Insurance 341 million euros.
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