Pay-for-Performance Failed to Find Racial, Ethnic Disparities in Mass. Medicaid

A study published in Health Affairs found that Massachusetts’ use of “pay-for-performance” bonuses has not found evidence of racial and ethnic disparities in Medicaid patients, according to a news release.

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The study concluded that while racial and ethnic disparities for Medicaid beneficiaries may exist, the pay-for-performance approach is not effective in detecting these differences, at least in the first years of implementation. The authors suggested this ineffectiveness may in part be attributable to the insufficient diversity in hospitals’ patient populations.

Massachusetts began to use pay-for-performance to try to identify and reduce racial and ethnic disparities in Medicaid services in 2008, two years after the state passed legislation that increased its Medicaid payment rate for hospitals.

Read the news release on the inability of Massachusetts’ pay-for-performance bonuses to identify racial and ethnic disparities in care for Medicaid patients.

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