Financial Incentives effective in improving Care

The Affordable Care Act includes a pay for performance program designed to promote high quality health care. A new study examined if financial incentives paid to physicians and the practice team encouraged higher quality care for patients with hypertension.  “Pay for performance is not a panacea but it could be part of an overall strategy to improve the quality of health care.” Dr. Laura Peterson and co-authors conducted a randomized control trial.  Researchers offered financial incentives to primary care physicians and medical teams including nurses, pharmacists and support staff who treated patients for hypertension.  “The only incentive group where we showed a significant affect were the individual incentives directed at physicians.  We did not find an affect for the practice level incentives.” The study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association.