HealthBlawg

David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog

    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • RSS
    • Email
  • About
  • Archives
  • Podcast
  • Press
  • Awards/Reviews
  • HIPAA
  • HCSM

P4P spreading like wildfire

September 6, 2007

Two reports on P4P were issued in recent weeks.  Follow the links to the P4P report form PriceWaterhouseCoopers and to the executive summary of the P4P report from MedVantage and the Leapfrog Group.

The MedVantage/Leapfrog report projected "there will be 155 pay-for-performance programs in place this year, compared with only 39 in 2003," per a Modern Healthcare article this week.

That article continues:

The [PWC] report looked at 10 different pay-for-performance programs and found that, together, they used almost 60 different physician-performance indicators, no one indicator was used by all 10 programs, and no two programs rewarded providers the same way.

Pay-for-performance programs can be an important tool to link payment to quality, the PWC report stated, "But the wide variation in program structures, performance metrics and rewards structures mutes their potential impact."

"I thought the report by PWC was pretty much on the money," said Francois de Brantes, national coordinator for the Bridges to Excellence physician-reward program. "Most of the employers and the plans we work with are increasingly cognizant of the fact that this dispersion of attention just creates a lot of noise, and that we need to strengthen the signal by having very clear standardized measures used by multiple plans and employers in a single community."

Bridges to Excellence is, of course, doing just that.  Another player in that space is Premier, which will be kicking off its QUEST P4P initiative in the near future.

If physicians can know that their performance will be measured by multiple payors against the same yardstick, they can be much more focused and efficient in their addressing of specific performance measures.  Better yet, if payors put some serious money on the table, they would tend to get physicians’ full attention (e.g., put more than 10% of compensation at risk, vs. 5% or less).

CMS will get in on the action next year, as its value-based purchasing transitions from pay-for-reporting to P4P.

There seem to be trends towards standardization of measures, though as the PWC report notes, we’re pretty far from optimal on that front.

The Modern Healthcare article jokes that the biggest winners here are the EHR companies pushing their products as the necessary means to tracking and reporting performance.

I also see organizations like Bridges to Excellence and Premier jockeying for position as keepers of the flame, bringing larger and larger numbers of providers into their respective big tents.

I still wonder whether, when all is said and done, the long-term systemic benefits are worth the exercise.  I do not doubt the benefit to the individual provider or group that meets or exceeds its performance targets and is compensated for its efforts.  I also do not doubt that "the train has left the station" (believe it or not, I’m typing those words on a train that is just leaving a station; ah, the human mind) and that P4P is here to stay, at least for a while, whether or not it is 100% analytically sound.  To take a stab at answering my own rhetorical musings, I think that when there is critical mass collected around some consensus measures (NQF or other), sufficient dollars are put at stake, and the federales jump in with both feet, we’ll start to see some systemic effects.

— David Harlow

Filed Under: CMS, Health care policy, Health Law, Hospitals, Medicare, Pay for performance, Physicians

you might also like:

  1. IOM recommends P4P for Medicare

  2. CMS forges ahead with pay-for-performance (P4P) initiatives

  3. Initial study of CMS P4P demonstration shows no significant improvement in outcomes

« David Harlow quoted in Physician Compensation Report article on Stark regulations; final Stark Phase III rules to be published this week
The latest on never events and HAI from CMS, Leapfrog and MA DPH »

Follow me on Twitter

David Harlow 💉😷 Follow 42,881 17,567

Mastodon @healthblawg@c.im #HealthCare #MedDevice #Compliance #Privacy @MyOmnipod #HIPAA #digitalhealth #HarlowOnHC #pinksocks Tweets are tweets No more no less

healthblawg
healthblawg avatar; David Harlow 💉😷 @healthblawg ·
41m 1618728026862149632

ICYMI> Dan Greenleaf, CEO of Modivcare on Digital Tools with a Human Touch — Harlow on Healthcare https://healthblawg.com/2022/01/dan-greenleaf-modivcare.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ReviveOldPost #digitalhealth #hcldr #hitsm

Image for the Tweet beginning: ICYMI>  Dan Greenleaf, CEO Twitter feed image.
Reply on Twitter 1618728026862149632 Retweet on Twitter 1618728026862149632 0 Like on Twitter 1618728026862149632 0 Twitter 1618728026862149632
healthblawg avatar; David Harlow 💉😷 @healthblawg ·
58m 1618723806939340806

The Harlow #Healthcare #Innovation Daily https://paper.li/healthblawg/1489156253?share_id=103fa990-9dc1-11ed-ad57-fa163e65ae25 #digitalhealth #hcldr #HarlowOnHC Thanks to @MailMyStatement @NovaBACKUP #digitalhealth #healthtech

Reply on Twitter 1618723806939340806 Retweet on Twitter 1618723806939340806 0 Like on Twitter 1618723806939340806 0 Twitter 1618723806939340806
healthblawg avatar; David Harlow 💉😷 @healthblawg ·
7h 1618627492033531906

The latest Harlow On Health Care Daily #HarlowOnHC #digitalhealth #healthcare #innovation #privacy #hcldr Thx: @EricTopol @raeannephd @MobiHealthNews #digitalhealth #healthtech

Image for twitter card

It's time for banks to get more intelligent about artificial intelligence

americanbanker.com Artificial intelligence now has the potential to fundamentally change customers' relationships with banks...

paper.li

Reply on Twitter 1618627492033531906 Retweet on Twitter 1618627492033531906 0 Like on Twitter 1618627492033531906 0 Twitter 1618627492033531906
Load More
Follow me on Mastodon

HIPAAtools

Hipaatools

The HIPAA Compliance Toolkit

The Walking Gallery

The Walking Gallery

Quick Links

  • Home
  • Categories
  • Archives
  • Podcast Interviews
  • HIPAAtools
  • HIPAA Compliance
  • Health Care Social Media
  • Speaking
  • In the Press
  • Blogroll

David Harlow

David Harlow

HealthcareNOW Radio

Connect with David

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Email
  • Subscribe
  • Contact
  • Book Me: Speaking
  • About
  • The Harlow Group LLC
Copyright © 2006–2023
HealthBlawg is a publication of The Harlow Group LLC. See Copyright notice and disclaimer.
Fair use with attribution and a link is encouraged. Click for more on David Harlow.
[footer_backtotop text="Back to top" href="#"]