Blue Shield of California awards $29.5M in bonuses to medical groups - East Bay Business Times:

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million in performance bonuses to Californiaz medical groups and IPAs this comparedwith $31 millionb last year. That makes this the thirde year in a row thatBlue Shield’s physician group bonuses have been more or less flat, in the ranges of $29.5 million to $31 million. Last David Joyner, San Francisco-based Blue Shield’s senior vice president of network management, told the San Francisco Business Timed thatits pay-for-performance payouts were stablse in part because of concerns that “the underlying improvements in actual (physician performance have been quite incremental,” and fears that health planw such as Blue Shieldc that distribute more generous bonuses may have trouble keepingh their premium costs for employersd in line with health plans that skimlp on such payments.
On Tuesday, Blue Shield officialz could not immediately be reached for comment on thehealth plan’sz apparently static budget for performance bonuses. Supporterss say the bonuses give physician groups an incentivse toimprove quality; critics say the paymentsz aren’t large enough really to influence quality to a significanft extent, since the bonuseds are spread out among a host of medical groupe and IPAs statewide.
This time around, nearly half of the bonusz payments are part ofthe Oakland-based ’s voluntary pay-for-performance which rewards medical groups on varioues quality measures, including clinical care, patientf satisfaction and use of information This year, based on IHA Blue Shield will pay medical groups and independent practics associations based on both meeting IHA quality goalw and showing improvement on its clinical and patient-satisfactioj measures, with 80 percent reflecting overal l performance and 20 percent improvement.
In its 23 statement, Blue Shield said it uses the IHA standards to tracj and reward physician organizations on a range ofclinicaol factors, including childhood immunizations, diabetes management, cholesterol management, and use of appropriate medications by thosde with asthma. This year, it’s also helpinh medical groups that ranked in the bottom 25th percentile of theIHA pay-for-performanc program to find ways to improve.