Pay-for-Performance Program Takes Look at Efficiency
Integrated Healthcare Association earlier this month announced that it will add "efficiency measures" to its pay-for-performance program in an effort to reduce rising health care costs and ensure that physicians provide appropriate care, the San Francisco Business Times reports.
Oakland-based IHA created the pay-for-performance program in 2003 in hopes of improving the quality of care and customer service provided by medical groups. Approximately 35,000 physicians in 210 medical groups are eligible for the program.
The measures will add data on cost and use of resources to existing measures that are intended to improve medical groups' quality, technological savvy and customer service, according to IHA. The data will compare total resources used to treat a specific patient population during a specific time period.
IHA officials said the data would be adjusted to reflect the severity of conditions and the complexity of cases.
Dolores Yanagihara, the program's development manager, said the new measures should take effect by 2009, with some elements beginning next year (Rauber, San Francisco Business Times, 2/23).