When a pharmaceutical company pays physicians e.g., for recommending medications or for producing academic studies funded wholly or in part by the pharma company, we have come to believe (we are given to believe) that such payments invariably compromise the physician's judgment and render the physician's work and subsequent advice or recommendations highly suspect.
So then, how is it that if Medicare (acting under Section 1233 HR3200), were to pay physicians to initiate end-of-life planning with patients, the payments do not compromise the physician's work or judgment, and do not call into question whatever subsequent advice or counsel that the physician might offer?
Can anyone 'splain that one to me?