Quality-Based Payment for Medical Groups and Individual Physicians

This paper measures the extent to which medical groups experience external pay-for-performance incentives based on quality and patient satisfaction and the extent to which these groups pay their primary care and specialist physicians using similar criteria. Over half (52%) of large medical groups received bonus payments from health insurance plans in the period 2006–2007 based on measures of quality and patient satisfaction. Medical groups facing external pay-for-performance incentives are more likely to pay their primary care physicians (odds ratio [OR] 4.5; p