In the United States, the national healthcare agenda is increasingly focused on improving the quality and safety of care provided to patients. An important element of this healthcare agenda is to link reimbursement to quality indicators. Known as pay for performance (P4P) or value based purchasing (VBP); this is a fundamental departure from the fee for service payment model and is a concept that buyers of health care hold providers of health care accountable for both cost and quality.
Currently being adopted by governmental agencies, both state and federal; managed care organizations; purchasing collaboratives; insurers; hospital systems and others, financial incentives reward providers for the achievement of a range of payer objectives, including efficiency of services, reporting of quality data or measurable improvements in quality and patient safety.
As the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) progressively moves forward to adopting a VBP approach for its services, P4P has more and more become a subject of great interest and conflicting opinion. The ACR is committed to continued involvement in this rapidly growing movement, and to ensuring our members have a voice in the changing environment.
We hope you will avail yourself of the opportunity to learn more about P4P and the ACR’s related activities by visiting the links below. This includes information on the CMS Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS), how to participate and potentially receive a bonus for quality measure reporting related to diagnostic and interventional radiology, and radiation oncology.
Please feel free to direct any questions you may have to: P4Pquestions@acr.org.
Please see links below for more information.