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Empire Blue Cross issues bonuses for NY-area hospitals

Patient Financial Services Weekly Advisor, July 1, 2005

Thirty-seven New York-area hospitals received a total of $741,200 in bonuses over the past two years from Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield for patient safety efforts, according to Long Island Business News.

New York City-based WellChoice, which does business as Empire Blue Cross, said the bonus money was for efforts in 2002 to 2004 as a reward for initiatives toward patient safety.

Empire said the three-year program was designed as a temporary incentive, and has since ended it. It did not identify which hospitals are to receive funds.

Hospitals were eligible if they showed they used computerized physician order-entry systems (CPOE) or staffed intensive care units with physicians who are board-certified or board-eligible in critical care medicine.

The order-entry systems have been shown to help reduce medical errors, improving the quality of the care that patients receive, and helping to eliminate the additional healthcare costs associated with those errors from the system, said Empire CEO Michael A. Stocker.

Empire said it paid $247,600 in bonuses for 2,516 eligible inpatient admissions during 2004. That's down slightly from $288,600 in 2003 for 2,339 eligible inpatient admissions, but higher than the $205,000 paid in 2002 for 1,395 eligible inpatient admissions, Long Island Business News reported.

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