HFMA – March 11, 2009.

Researchers at the RAND Corporation are evaluating a statewide pay-for-performance program launched by the California Integrated Healthcare Association in 2003. Under the program, physician groups receive financial bonuses if they meet certain performance guidelines such as increasing the number of patients with diabetes who receive recommended blood tests.  Click title to read more…

Other performance measures include improving patient experience with getting care and adopting health information technology capabilities. Between 2003 and 2007, health plans participating in the program paid $203 million in incentives to participating physician groups.

Most of the medical groups surveyed by RAND suggested that the program’s financial incentives–generally about $1,500 to $2,000 annually per physician–were too small to stimulate significant change among most doctors. They suggested the incentives needed to be two to five times higher in order to achieve quality improvements.

Health plans thought increasing the incentives was a low priority because of the relatively small quality improvements attained thus far and questions about whether other types of investments might produce greater quality gains, according to the study.

Read an abstract of the study.