Offering physicians financial incentives does change physician behavior — though modestly — to improve basic health measures, according to a recent study published in JAMA Pediatrics.
Researchers examined pay for performance in the context of pediatric accountable care organizations. More than 200 incentivized physicians, about 1,600 nonincentivized physicians and 175 nonincentivized hospital physicians participated in the study.
They found physicians who received incentives were more likely than nonincentivized physicians to improve in well visits and some immunizations. However, the physicians in hospitals, who were targeted with improvement efforts not tied to incentives, improved the most, even more than the community physicians who received incentives.
Researchers concluded that pay for performance did help spur improvements in the pediatric ACO, but some other interventions, such as those used in by the hospital-employed physicians, may have been more effective.
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