Trial program will tie doctors' pay to service quality

[The Straight Story]

Trial program will tie doctors' pay to service quality

From CongressDaily

As Congress prepares to debate a fix for the Medicare physician payment formula during the lame-duck session, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Monday it will begin a demonstration project to compensate physicians for the quality of care to beneficiaries with chronic conditions.

The three-year program, slated to begin in 2007, will include physicians in 800 small- or medium-size practices in Arkansas, California, Massachusetts and Utah. In the first year, physicians will be paid for reporting data on quality measures. In subsequent years, they will be eligible for an annual performance-based bonus of $10,000 per physician and up to $50,000 per practice.

Key members of Congress agree that pay-for-performance measures should be included in a fix to the Medicare physician payment formula. Two House proposals on the table, drafted by House Energy and Commerce Chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, and Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chairwoman Nancy Johnson, R-Conn., offer bonus payments to physicians who participate in quality reporting programs.

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=35288&dcn=todaysnews

[Mojorabbit]

1. I guess this means

they will work it like an HMO and those docs who save the most money as opposed to giving the best care will get the bonuses.

[Indiana_Dem]

2. yeah, & it all has to be done in under 20 min./visit! nt

[Mountainman]

3. Sounds ike they get paid of the patient gets better which is a crock.

What is the performance measurement. Some guy gets cancer and lives and another guy gets cancer and dies. The doc who has the living patient gets paid the one who's patient died gets nothing. Doesn't matter if the guy who died would have never responded to treatment. Or maybe docs will not touch someone who has a terminal illness.

Conservatives have live in a black and white world. Nothing is grey. If there is any kind of problem, just poor a little conservative ideology on it and all will be better.