The other day, I saw a senior citizen for an annual wellness visit. He is a well controlled diabetic. One of the quality parameters that gets me brownie points and brings extra money to my practice is that we document an eye exam, a kidney function blood test and a urine test to look for the early warning signs of diabetic kidney disease. We are also judged on whether he takes a statin drug to lower his heart attack risk, regardless of what his cholesterol numbers are and that his blood pressure is within range.
We only got his urine test done a couple months ago, near the end of 2025. When I did his wellness visit the other day he had received a urine cup from his insurance company. I told him that it would be kind of silly to do that test now because he had it just a couple months ago. He should really have it toward the end of the year. If he doesn’t do it by then I will get dinged, but if he does it now it’s going to be fine and it wouldn’t serve any medical purpose. This is a common dilemma in today’s medicine. Do we do things that make medical sense or do we do things to chase? What in the industry is called “star ratings“?
So here’s a question for my colleagues: Would you have done the urine test now just to get the points or would you do it a year from when you did your last one?
A Country Doctor Writes: 
0 Responses to “Practicing Good Medicine or Chasing Star Ratings?”