Quality Incentives
Abstract
Quality Incentives Meredith Rosenthal and colleagues (Mar/Apr 04) characterize HealthPartners’ quality incentive program as using various Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS) measures. Our incentive program does focus on diabetes, coronary artery disease, preventive care, tobacco treatment, and patient satisfaction with appointment access. However, we do not use single-service HEDIS measures for quality incentives. The distinction is important. HealthPartners’ incentives align with challenging composite measures, such as the percentage of patients with diabetes meeting all cardiovascular risk factor treatment goals (including, for instance, blood glucose, cholesterol, and blood pressure goals together with aspirin use and no tobacco). Another measure is the percentage of coronary artery disease patients meeting all risk factor treatment goals and the percentage of patients with all age- and sex-appropriate preventive care completed. Incentives are also tied to identifying a patient’s tobacco use at every visit and helping tobacco users quit, and to garnering patients’ satisfaction with their ability to get a convenient appointment. These measures require provider groups to make system enhancements to improve performance. The approach has paid off. Minnesota has the nation’s lowest rate of death from heart disease; many groups are moving to electronic records; and many provider groups