The Growing Case for Using Physician Incentives to Improve Health Care Quality

to improve health care quality by advancing the purchasing practices of major corporations and government agencies, particularly Fortune 500 companies, Medicare, and public employers. Objectives and Offerings: Our objectives are to help health care purchasers buy higher quality health care, save lives, and empower consumers to choose higher quality health plans and providers. We are also building the business case for effective, value-driven health care purchasing. Institute offerings include courses and workshops, technical assistance, convening of experts and working groups, research, and information on tools and best practices. His background includes Wisconsin state health administrator, CEO of the Wisconsin Medicaid program, managed care company executive, and senior health financing examiner with the White House budget office. Board certified in health care management, Piper holds a Master' s degree in public administration from the University of Wisconsin. Deputy Director: Margaret Thomas Trinity, MM, an Academy senior manager, is the Institute' s deputy director. Her background includes director, public programs for the American Association of Health Plans and senior manager with a leading health care consulting firm. A graduate of Yale University, Trinity received her Master' s degree in management from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University. A bout the Authors Bailit Health Purchasing, LLC (BHP) is a firm dedicated to assisting public agencies, private purchasers, and purchasing coalitions in the development and execution of effective health care purchasing strategies. BHP is driven by the belief that only sophisticated and demanding purchasing efforts can create accountability for quality, cost-effective care. Sixth Man Consulting (6MC) is a health care consulting firm that helps physicians improve the productivity, clinical outcomes and market attractiveness of their outpatient practices. 6MC's services include the generation of performance cost curves from routinely collected data, comparisons with relevant peers, and coaching in performance management. I FOREWORD ncentives are used successfully throughout business, government, and personal life to improve performance. Employers use bonuses to reward higher performers. Local, state, and federal governments pay highway contractors extra to finish projects early. Parents reward their children for better grades. In the health care industry, however, there is little, if anything, that links physician reimbursement (salaries and/or bonuses) to providing quality care. 1 In its report, Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) describes a dramatic and painful disconnect between evidence-based best practices and the actual practice of medicine by most physicians. Incentives …