What does pay-for-performance mean?
A. Pay-for-performance programs offer you payment for doing certain things, meeting certain measures. Do you have a patient registry? It might be worth some money to you. Having a registry is a structural measure. Do you use your registry to coordinate care, to call patients and ask them to come in for the care they need? Doing that is a process measure. Do you keep track of the hemoglobin A1c level of your patients with diabetes? Reaching a certain average A1c is an outcome measure. Most P4P programs combine or blend structural, process and outcome measures and offer incentives — financial reward — for meeting the measures. Q. Are all P4P programs the same? A. No. They’re fairly market-specific. For example, General Electric uses the program called Bridges to Excellence for physicians caring for GE employees; the Bridges program will be different from others. However, if Medicare adopts a P4P program, it will probably be fairly consistent across the country. Q. Will P4P make me or m
