California Blue Cross (Wellpoint) is one of the plans participating in the California wide Pay for Performance (P4P) scheme, which rewards physician groups for improving a variety of quality scores. The scheme is administered by the IHA, a provider/payer talking shop that’s seized on quality as an issue that might help improve the antagonistic relationship between plans and providers. This article from MD Practice Alert describes the way Blue Cross HMO is using pay for performance. The article is a little confusing; despite what it says there is no monolithic P4P standards. All the health plans involved have slightly different metrics. The key thing is that they are all paying bonuses based on some performance measure and making those measures and bonuses publicly available. For more information on differences between the plans, see here.
Like the other plans Blue Cross is rewarding the groups on the more preventative HEDIS-type measures that are the core of the current P4P. However, one difference between Blue Cross and some of the others is that it’s rewarding physician groups that have utilization management systems that track care given to the group’s patients outside the group’s walls, and especially that given to long-term inpatients in hospitals, rehab centers and skilled nursing facilities. In addition, Blue Cross is paying out more money ($28m) and a higher percentage of its overall payment budget (10%) via its version of P4P.
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