Pay For Performance: Physicians Pay For Insurers Better Financial Performance?

Posted by Clark Venable on 12/28/2007

I've always been suspicious of the pay for performance movement. Thinking cynically (which I do more and more these days), it seemed to me that pay for performance has the backing of the insurance industry because they could use it as an excuse to pay physicians less. Show me a pay for performance program that actually increases costs to insurers and I'll show you an out-of-work actuary.

Mark Vonnegut, a pediatrician, has a perspective article in the December 27, 2007 issue of the NEJM titled Is Quality Improvement Improving Quality? A View from the Doctor's Office. I found the following a much better statement of the issue than I could ever come up with:

"I can't help suspecting that underneath all these quality-improvement and pay-for-performance initiatives lies yet another scheme that will work out very well for insurers and very badly for providers and patients."

Unfortunately, it's not free full text, but it should be (meaning you'll need a subscription to read the whole piece).

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