Stable, mature processes; expanding scope and payment; and improvements in quality and costs characterize the progress made by pay-for-performance healthcare, according to the fourth national P4P survey conducted by Med-Vantage Inc, writes AHIP WIRE. Results represent more than 75 P4P sponsors of 94 programs for physicians and hospitals. The respondents comprise health plans and coalitions, and in total represent more than 150 million health plan members, according to a joint announcement from Med-Vantage, Leapfrog, and the Integrated Healthcare Association. Goldbach and Binder highlighted the progress P4P has made in recent years, as indicated by the survey results.
In the two years since the last survey, the percentage of programs that report improvements in quality due to P4P has almost doubled, the announcement said. Now more than half of P4P programs cite measureable increases in their providers’ clinical quality, the area that has been part of P4P the longest. Other areas with major jumps in P4P effectiveness were patient survey results, cost control, and adoption of IT tools.