The first program studied was Maryland’s statewide quality-based reimbursement program, which is similar to Medicare’s value-based purchasing program. The program involves financial rewards and penalties that aim to foster improvements in process-of-care measures, such as giving aspirin to heart attack patients upon arrival or giving blood-thinning agents to patients after certain surgeries. Because of this program, all clinical process-of-care measures improved by 7.31 percent from 2007 to 2010, compared to the national average of 6.86 percent the study showed.
The study also examined Maryland’s second pay-for-performance program, Maryland Hospital-Acquired Conditions Program, which was rolled out in 2009. The program compared hospitals’ risk-adjusted relative performance on many hospital-acquired conditions. As a result of this program, hospital-acquired conditions declined 15.26 percent in two years, which saved Maryland $110.9 million. If this program was implemented nationally, the Medicare fee-for-service program could have saved $1.3 billion.
Results from both programs show that consistent and clear financial incentives can promote care quality and improve efficiency of care in hospitals, according to the study.
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