Home

  • Home
    • » e-Newsletters

JAMA study: Pay-for-performance produces little gain for money spent

Physician Practice Advisor, October 19, 2005

A study published in the October 12 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) gives pay-for-performance programs a mixed review.

The study concluded that, "Paying clinicians to reach a common, fixed performance target may produce little gain in quality for the money spent and will largely reward those with higher performance at baseline."

The study looked at a 2003 pay-for-performance program established by PacifiCare Health Systems in its California network. The program gave bonuses based on 10 targets for clinical and customer service quality. Researchers compared this group to PacifiCare's Pacific Northwest network, which was not part of the pay-for-performance program, using three clinical care measures: cervical cancer screening, mammography, and hemoglobin testing.

Click here to view the JAMA article abstract.

Most Popular