With the second year of a three-year Medicare pay-for-performance demonstration project completed, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will award bonuses of $8.7 million to 115 hospitals that received the highest scores on 30 quality measures, reports The New York Times. Although all 266 participating hospitals have improved their quality of care--reducing heart attack deaths by 1,300, for example--some of the hospitals questioned whether the bonuses were rewarding the correct behavior.
Some said the financial incentives should recognize superior patient outcomes rather than processes of care. Others worried that the designated quality measures lagged research showing that newer treatments were better for patients. Community Health Partners in Lorain, Ohio, said the bonus paid for the cost of making quality improvements but that public reporting of the hospital’s scores were more of an incentive to perform well than the hope of receiving a financial reward. Several gave credit for their stellar performance to the open exchange of information among the hospitals. CMS officials said they were encouraged by the hospitals’ results and were evaluating the precise type of financial bonuses and quality measures that would be used if Medicare eventually links payments to quality of performance.
