Search

Objectives: Despite substantial enthusiasm among insurers and federal policy makers for pay-for-performance incentives, little is known about the current scope of these incentives or their influence on the delivery of care. To assess the scope and magnitude of pay-for-performance (P4P) incentives among physician groups and to examine whether such incentives are associated with quality improvement initiatives., Study Design: Structured telephone survey of leaders of physician groups delivering primary care in Massachusetts. ASSESSED METHODS: Prevalence of P4P incentives among physician groups tied to specific measures of quality or utilization and prevalence of physician group quality improvement initiatives., Results: Most group leaders (89%) reported P4P incentives in at least 1 commercial health plan contract. Incentives were tied to performance on Health Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS) quality measures (89% of all groups), utilization measures (66%), use of information technology (52%), and patient satisfaction (37%). Among the groups with P4P and knowledge of all revenue streams, the incentives accounted for 2.2% (range, 0.3%-8.8%) of revenue. P4P incentives tied to HEDIS quality measures were positively associated with groups' quality improvement initiatives (odds ratio, 1.6; P = .02). Thirty-six percent of group leaders with P4P incentives reported that they were very important or moderately important to the group's financial success., Conclusions: P4P incentives are now common among physician groups in Massachusetts, and these incentives most commonly reward higher clinical quality or lower utilization of care. Although the scope and magnitude of incentives are still modest for many groups, we found an association between P4P incentives and the use of quality improvement initiatives.

Background: The National Scientific Panel on Immunization Measurement Standards recently recommended that the assessment population for the childhood immunization measure of the Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set include 24-month-olds with > or = 6 months of continuous enrollment in a health plan. The current inclusion criterion is > or = 12 months of continuous enrollment. The new recommendation would expand the assessment population to include children with more recent enrollment., Objectives: To compare the immunization status of children enrolled in a large health plan between ages 12 and 17 months vs earlier in life and to describe the proportion of children enrolled between ages 12 and 17 months that could be fully immunized by 24 months., Methods: All children enrolled in a group-model HMO who turned 24 months old during a 12-month study were identified for a retrospective cohort study. A computerized immunization database was used to identify all vaccines administered to each child, and summary measures were created to describe immunization status at selected times. The full-text medical records of children who seemed to have no immunizations in the computerized database were reviewed., Results: Of the 3448 children in the study population, 3130 (91%) enrolled between birth and 11 months of age and 161 (5%) enrolled between 12 and 17 months of age. Whereas 87% of children who enrolled between birth and 11 months of age were fully immunized at age 24 months, only 57% of those enrolled between 12 and 17 months of age were fully immunized at 24 months of age (risk difference, 30%; 95% confidence interval, 24%-36%; P < .001). Of the 161 children enrolled between 12 and 17 months of age, 68% had received all of the immunizations in the primary series. Only 6% of these 161 children would have been impossible or difficult to fully immunize by age 24 months using accelerated catch-up vaccination schedules., Conclusions: Children who enrolled in an HMO between 12 and 17 months of age were less likely than those who enrolled earlier in life to be fully immunized by age 24 months, but it would be feasible to bring almost all of them up to date by that age. Including such children in immunization measures, either together with earlier-enrolled children or as a separate stratum, would expand the scope of the quality of care under evaluation.