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Pay-for-performance emphasis helps with smoking cessation

Quality Improvement Monitor, October 17, 2008

A study in the October 13 Archives of Internal Medicine found that programs that tie physician pay to quality of care were effective in helping patients quit smoking, the Wall Street Journal’s Health Blog reports.

The key measure studied was clinics’ referrals of patients in Minnesota to a smoking cessation quit line. Researchers looked at clinics that were paid bonuses for making such referrals ($5,000 for 50 referrals and $25 for each referral beyond that) compared to those that didn’t have a financial incentive.

The clinics that were in the pay-for-performance program made 1,483 referrals to the quit line, an average of 11.4% of their patients who were smokers; the clinics that weren’t in the program made 441 referrals, an average of 4.2% of their smokers.

Click here to read more about the study and here to access the study.

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