Blue Shield of California awards $29.5M in bonuses to California medical groups - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal:

http://linuxarts.org/links.htm
million in performance bonuses to California medicalk groups and IPAsthis year, compared with $31 million last That makes this the third year in a row that Blue Shield’xs physician group bonuses have been more or less in the range of $29.5 million to $31 Last year, David Joyner, San Francisco-based Blue Shield’xs senior vice president of network told the San Francisco Business Times that its pay-for-performanc e payouts were stable in part becaus e of concerns that “the underlying improvementss in actual (physician group) performanced have been quite small, incremental,” and fearws that health plans such as Blue Shield that distributw more generous bonuses may have trouble keeping their premium cost for employers in line with healtn plans that skimp on such payments.
On Tuesday, Blue Shielr officials could not immediately be reachefd for comment on thehealth plan’s apparentlt static budget for performance bonuses. Supporters say the bonusews give physician groups an incentive toimprovr quality; critics say the payments aren’t large enough to really influence qualitgy to a significant extent, sincwe the bonuses are spread out amongb a host of medical groupx and IPAs statewide. This time nearly half of the bonus payments are part ofthe Oakland-baseds ’s voluntary pay-for-performance program, which reward medical groups on various quality measures, includingf clinical care, patient satisfaction and use of informatioh technology.
This year, based on IHA criteria, Blue Shields will pay medical groups and independent practicse associations based on both meeting IHA quality goals and showing improvementg on its clinicaland patient-satisfaction measures, with 80 percent reflectinfg overall performance and 20 percent improvement. In its 23 statement, Blue Shield said it uses the IHA standardz to track and reward physician organizations on a range ofclinicao factors, including childhood immunizations, diabetew management, cholesterol management, and use of appropriate medicationa by those with asthma.
This year, it’s also helpin g medical groups that ranked in the bottojm 25th percentile of theIHA pay-for-performance program to find ways to