Pay-for-Performance in Safety Net Settings: New Evidence from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

Slide Presentation from the AHRQ 2008 Annual Conference

On September 9, 2008, Gary Young, J.D., Ph.D., Bert White, M.B.A., Karen Sautter, M.P.H., Jason Silver, Barbara Bokhour, Ph.D., and Mark Meterko, Ph.D., made this presentation at the 2008 Annual Conference. Select to access the PowerPoint® presentation (620 KB; ).

Slide 1

Pay-for-Performance in Safety Net Settings: New Evidence from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

Gary Young, J.D., Ph.D., Bert White M.B.A., Karen Sautter, M.P.H., Jason Silver, Barbara Bokhour, Ph.D., Mark Meterko, Ph.D.

Boston University School of Public Health, and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Health Services Research and Development Service.

AHRQ Annual Meeting
September 9, 2008

Financial support from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Slide 2

Definition of Safety-Net Provider

Various criteria have been proposed:

• Service to high levels of Medicaid and uninsured patients.
• Public ownership.
• Rural setting.

Slide 3

Pay-for-Performance (P4P) in Safety-Net Settings*

• As of July 2006, 28 State Medicaid agencies were operating P4P programs.
• 15 Medicaid agencies plan to start P4P programs.
• By 2011, there will be an estimated 82 P4P programs in 43 states.

• Note: * Source: Center for Health Care Strategies.

Slide 4

P4P: Will it Work?

Recent evidence points to modest gains from P4P in terms of provider adherence.

Selected Findings:

• Rosenthal et al. (2006) Relative increase of 3.6 percentage points for cervical cancer screening.
• Levin-Scherz et al. (2006) Relative increase of 2-19 percentage points for diabetes measures.
• Lindenauer et a. (2007) Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Premier demonstration: Relative increase of 2.6 percentage points for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) measures; 3.4 points for pneumonia measures; 4.1 points for heart failure measures.
• Young et al. (2007) Absolute increase of 7 percentage points for diabetes measure (e.g., eye exam).
• Pearson et al. (2008) Relative increase of .04 to .07 percentage points for certain diabetes measures and well child visits. But relatively less improvement for other measures (e.g., Chlamydia screening).

Slide 5

P4P and Safety-Net Providers: Existing Research

• Felt-Lisk et al. (2007) Absolute increase of 4 to 22 percentage point increase among 4 CA Medicaid plans (i.e., Local Initiative Rewarding Results) for well child visits (documentation-driven improvement).
• Werner et al. (2008) Hospitals with high Medicaid caseloads (> or = 40%) exhibit relatively less improvement on Medicare Compare measures (e.g., aspirin at discharge) than hospitals with low Medicaid caseloads
• (< or =5%).
• Goldman et al (2007) Survey of 37 executives at safety-net hospitals about public reporting and P4P. Major concerns: case mix, lack of resources, and socio-economic problems of patients (e.g., inability to speak English).

Slide 6

P4P in Safety-Net Settings: Theoretical Considerations

Performance = Motivation + Skill

• Financial incentive as a motivator: external rewards vs. intrinsic motivation.
• Skills for improving quality: Learning vs. Performing; Resources for improving quality (added pressures from complexity of case mix, high need for care coordination).

Slide 7

AHRQ Research Three Key Questions

• What is the potential for pay-for-performance to improve quality in safety net settings?
• Are there unique challenges to designing and implementing pay-for-performance in safety net settings?
• Does applying pay-for-performance to safety net settings carry substantial risks for unintended consequences?

Slide 8

Study Setting

• Boston Medical Center HealthNet Plan and 13 community health centers.
  • Insurer-sponsored program (new).
  • Community health center as unit of accountability.
  • Medicaid population.
• Montefiore Medical Groups (New York).
  • Provider-sponsored program (mature; full-risk contracts).
  • Individual physician as unit of accountability.
  • Medicaid and uninsured population.

Slide 9

Sources of Data

• Survey of physicians.
  • HealthNet (61/108; 56% response rate; 44% aware of incentive).
  • Montefiore (89/141; 63% response rate;
    • 50% aware of incentive).
• Interviews with senior leaders.
• Clinical performance data.
  • Administrative data (HealthNet).
  • Chart reviews (Montefiore).

Slide 10

Key Findings

• No definitive evidence of quality improvement in short term.
• Higher adherence to clinical process correlated with better patient outcomes.
• No evidence of unintended consequences based on survey, interviews, and clinical performance data.
• Physicians accepting of concept, but financial incentive not a direct motivator for quality.
• Achievement of pay-for-performance program goals complicated by socio-economic status of patients.
• Financial incentives for quality can be undercut by larger incentives for productivity.

Slide 11

Key Findings

No definitive evidence of quality improvement in short term.

Slide 12

Boston Medical Center (BMC) HealthNet Performance Measures adherence scores, 13 community health centers

• Note: *Diabetic Eye Exam no incentive in 2007.
  **HbA1c incentive in 2007.
  ***No Data Available.

Slide 13

Key Findings

• Higher adherence to clinical process correlated with better patient outcomes (based on sample of 51 physicians at Montefiore from 2002 to 2006).
• HbA1c: .33 - .69.
• LDL: .22 - .47.

Slide 14

Key Findings

• No evidence of unintended consequences based on survey, interviews and clinical performance data.

Slide 15

Physician Survey Data

The line graph presents "Physician Perceptions of P4Q in Three Healthcare Settings: Montefiore Medical Group (n=45); BMC HealthNet (n=27); and RIPA [Rochester Individual Practice Association] (n=234)." The vertical axis, scale score (min=1/max=5), goes from 1 to 5 and the horizontal axis shows various physician perceptions. The results show:

• Awareness.
  • Montefiore Medical Group: 2.91.
  • BMC HealthNet: 2.67.
  • RIPA: 2.84.
• Financial Sallience.
  • Montefiore Medical Group: 2.37.
  • BMC HealthNet: 1.98.
  • RIPA: 2.24.
• Clinical Relevance.
  • Montefiore Medical Group: 4.29.
  • BMC HealthNet: 3.86.
  • RIPA: 3.51.
• No Unintended Consequences.
  • Montefiore Medical Group: 4.11.
  • BMC HealthNet: 3.62.
  • RIPA: 3.76.
• Control.
  • Montefiore Medical Group: 3.33.
  • BMC HealthNet: 2.61.
  • RIPA: 2.72.
• Cooperation.
  • Montefiore Medical Group: 2.89.
  • BMC HealthNet: 3.11.
  • RIPA: 2.94.
• Impact.
  • Montefiore Medical Group: 2.46.
  • BMC HealthNet: 2.79.
  • RIPA: 2.57.

Slide 16

Key Findings

• Physicians accepting of concept, but financial incentive not a direct motivator for quality.
• "...just pay us appropriately to begin with. Why should you have to incentivize a doctor for quality if you pay them enough."

Slide 17

Key Findings

• Achievement of pay-for-performance program goals complicated by socio-economic status of patients.

  "Many of these people we care for, part of their economic, social and psychological experience is that they lack value...So that the whole process of communicating to a person that they are a human being of value, part of that occurs in the communication between a physician and that of a patient."

Slide 18

Key Findings

• Financial incentives for quality can be undercut by larger incentives for productivity.

  "You feel like sometimes you're running an assembly line... there is an inherent conflict between time and quality."

Slide 19

Conclusions and Directions for Future Research

• While our research suggests that P4P is not necessarily antithetical to the values of safety-net providers, the effectiveness of the concept for improving quality in such settings is not very apparent.
• In designing P4P programs to improve quality, careful consideration must be given to other incentive and compensation arrangements that may conflict or undermine quality-related incentives.
• As our investigation consisted of two case studies, research is needed to test the validity of the findings in a large sample of safety-net providers.