Scientific Definition
Specialists earn more for procedures than primary care for prevention.
Plain-English Definition
Specialists earn more for procedures than primary care for prevention.
Feynman Explanation
We pay the firefighter, not the fire inspector.
Core Principle
Specialists earn more for procedures than primary care for prevention.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Specialists earn more for procedures than primary care for prevention.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Care delivery is shaped by reimbursement architecture.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
We pay the firefighter, not the fire inspector.
Examples
- U.S. primary care under-funded relative to procedural specialties.
- Care delivery is shaped by reimbursement architecture.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Rebalance reimbursement to weight prevention and care coordination.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Rebalance reimbursement to weight prevention and care coordination.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Productivity targets compress visits, raising misdiagnosis and burnout.
A federal mandate intended to lower drug costs for the poor became a profit engine for hospitals and contract pharmacies.
Liability exposure pushes clinicians to order tests for legal protection rather than clinical need.
Federal reimbursement rules incentivize cycling seniors through hospitalizations to upgrade billing categories.
Paying providers per procedure rewards more procedures, not better outcomes.
Systems paid per filled bed have weak incentives to invest in prevention or community health.
Opaque billing rules create lucrative work for administrators and revenue-cycle firms instead of care.
Insurers profit when claims are denied, delayed, or abandoned.
Hospital group-purchasing and opaque contracting inflate device costs far above marginal cost.
Sales bonuses and prescriber relationships fueled mass over-prescription and an addiction crisis.
Federal incentives meant for neglected diseases get used to privatize widely available medicines.
Drug companies optimize for high-margin chronic conditions, not cures.