Linking Performance With Payment: Implementing the Physician Value-Based Payment Modifier

Physicians are leaders of patient care teams and decision makers for system-based investments that facilitate quality improvement. The National Quality Strategy established 3 aims of improving health, improving health care, and reducing cost. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (C...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association 2012-11, Vol.308 (20), p.2089-2090
Main Authors: VanLare, Jordan M, Blum, Jonathan D, Conway, Patrick H
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Clinical Competence
Clinical medicine
Continuity of Patient Care
Cost Control
Data Collection
Government agencies
Humans
Incentives
Medicare Part B - economics
Medicare Part B - standards
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
Physicians
Physicians - economics
Physicians - standards
Practice Patterns, Physicians
Quality Indicators, Health Care
Quality of care
Quality of Health Care
Reimbursement, Incentive
United States
Value-Based Purchasing
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Summary:Physicians are leaders of patient care teams and decision makers for system-based investments that facilitate quality improvement. The National Quality Strategy established 3 aims of improving health, improving health care, and reducing cost. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS's) value-based purchasing (VBP) programs create incentives for physicians to pursue these aims and to reward value more so than volume. Physicians' leadership role in the health system makes incorporating physicians into the VBP portfolio critical to realizing the potential of these programs. The Physician Value-Based Payment Modifier (value modifier), part of the Affordable Care Act, links physician performance in quality and cost with Medicare Part B payments that covers services such as laboratory tests, surgeries, and physician visits. CMS recently finalized a rule implementing the value modifier, including initial eligibility, measures of quality and cost, and the effect of physician performance on payment. Here, VanLare et al provide an overview of the program, its effect on physicians, and aim to engage physicians in a dialogue about how the value modifier should evolve over the course of implementation.
ISSN:0098-7484
1538-3598
DOI:10.1001/jama.2012.14834