Business
Physician payment plan to be tested
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted June 23, 2008
Prometheus, a new model that claims to improve the way physicians are paid, will be put to the test in January 2009 when four pilot programs are launched.
Prometheus Payment Plan Inc. recently secured $6.4 million in grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and others.
The plan calls for a group of physicians to work collectively to treat a patient's particular condition. The group would be paid a total amount based on a set of evidence-based case rates, with rewards built in for physicians who provide what the plan determines to be high-quality, science-based care. The plan's design team says physicians would receive higher reimbursements than through fee-for-service arrangements, with the expectation that the preventive care they provide would result in fewer expensive complications.
The three-year pilot projects will take place in Minneapolis, Rockford, Ill., and two sites to be determined.
American Medical Association policy on physician pay-for-performance programs says those arrangements should be designed to improve health care quality and patient safety by linking remuneration to measures of individual, group or organizational performance.
The Association said that Prometheus is conceptually sound but so complex it will be difficult to implement. The AMA also is concerned that all physicians in a group be rated and reimbursed fairly.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/06/23/bibf0623.htm.
