Physician pay-for-performance programs may produce little gain ...( Paying clinicians to reach a common fi...)

Physician pay-for-performance programs may produce little gain in quality

Paying clinicians to reach a common, fixed performance target may produce little gain in overall quality, and may largely reward those with higher performance at baseline, according to a study in the October 12 issue of JAMA.

The number of health plans and purchasers in the United States that have adopted pay-for-performance mechanisms for quality improvement is growing rapidly, according to background information in the article. However, most of these programs are in the early stages of trial, evaluation, and adjustment. Although there is intense interest in and optimism about pay-for-performance programs among many policy makers and payers, there is little published research on pay-for-performance in health care. There have been a few studies demonstrating that pay-for-performance leads to improved quality of care.

Meredith B. Rosenthal, Ph.D., of the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, and colleagues conducted a study on the impact of a prototypical physician pay-for-performance on quality of care within one of the nation's largest health plans, PacifiCare Health Systems. In 2003, PacifiCare began paying its California medical groups bonuses according to meeting or exceeding 10 clinical and service quality targets. The researchers examined the performance of California medical groups that were subject to pay-for-performance, and a comparison group in the Pacific Northwest (Oregon and Washington). Quality improvement reports were included from October 2001 through April 2004 issued to approximately 300 large physician organizations. There were three process measures of clinical quality: cervical cancer screening, mammography, and hemoglobin A1c testing.

The researchers found that clinical quality scores improved as follows: for cervical cancer screening, 5.3 percent for California vs. 1.7 percent for Pacific Northwest; for mammography, 1.9 percent vs. 0.2 percent; and for hemoglobin A1c testing, 2.1 percent vs. 2.1 percent. Compared wi
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Contact: Kevin Myron
617-432-3952
JAMA and Archives Journals
11-Oct-2005

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