C.D. Howe Institute paper supports capitation payments

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 54, No. 10, December 2012, Page 518 News

A new paper from the C.D. Howe Institute supports the use of capitation payments versus fee-for-service for primary care physicians. The authors point out that there are lessons to be learned from the use of capitation models, and call for a stricter and more consistent approach.

The paper says capitation makes more sense for modern-day family doctors who act more as patient managers—diagnosing, prescribing, and referring—and delivering less direct services than in the past. One problem presented by capitation is patients seeking care from a provider other than their designated primary care provid­er, which tends to drive up costs.

The paper, entitled “How to pay family doctors: Why ‘pay per patient’ is better than fee for service,” can be viewed at www.cdhowe.org/pdf/Commentary_365.pdf.

. C.D. Howe Institute paper supports capitation payments. BCMJ, Vol. 54, No. 10, December, 2012, Page(s) 518 - News.


Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
  • There is no period after the journal name.
  • Page numbers are not abbreviated.


For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

BCMJ Guidelines for Authors

Leave a Reply