Paying Doctors To Hit Goals Yields Mixed Results

Pay-for-performance programs for doctors don't seem to do much to improve health care quality, according to a study by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health. The study concluded that paying doctors to reach a common, fixed performance target may result in little overall gain in quality and may largely benefit doctors with better quality performance at baseline. The study, published in the Oct. 12 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, noted that there has been rapid growth in the number of health care pay-for-performance programs in the United States. However, there is little published research on the effectiveness of such programs.