[Avoidance of overuse as an integral part of medical professionalism. Conceptual analysis and new perspective].

BACKGROUND: The topics of rationing and priority setting have been increasingly discussed over the past 5 years in Germany by physicians together with other health care stakeholders. The topic of overuse, however, has not been discussed with similar intensity and publicity.
OBJECTIVES: This analysis paper outlines the relationships and differences between efficiency, priority setting, and rationing. Furthermore, it argues why and how German physicians should address the topic of overuse with more transparency and intensity. DISCUSSION: Efforts of physicians to rationalize health care mainly comprise efforts to decrease overuse. The identification of important areas of overuse includes the prioritization of indications and medical interventions. Rationing health care can be unavoidable, for example, because other strategies such as rationalization, price regulation or disinvestments are not sufficient to avoid scarcity of financial resources. In such a case, rationing health care is unavoidable and, therefore, cannot be unethical per se. However, the debate on rationing becomes more legitimate if physicians demonstrate sufficient efforts to reduce overuse sufficiently. The Choosing Wisely initiative in the USA is outlined as one interesting option of how physicians could demonstrate and prove such efforts. Additional and more effective strategies to decrease overuse might be possible.
CONCLUSION: German physicians demand a more explicit communication within their communities and together with other stakeholders on the appropriateness of existing and potential future activities to decrease overuse. Such initiatives to avoid and decrease overuse should primarily be motivated through the ethical principle of beneficence, while the effect of cost containment should be considered as a welcomed side effect.