Transcript Slide 1
Pay for Performance –
a critical assessment
(using recent Estonian experience)
“Improving primary care in Europe and the US: Towards patientcentered, proactive and coordinated systems of care”
April 3, 2008
Ain Aaviksoo, MD MPH
PRAXIS – Center for Policy Studies
Why?
• Encourage most rapid feasible performance
improvement by all providers.
• Support innovation and constructive change
throughout the health care system.
• Promote better outcomes of care, especially
through coordination of care across provider
settings and time.
IOM. Rewarding provider performance: aligning incentives in Medicare. (2006)
• Motivate family physicians to actively engage in disease
prevention and monitoring of chronic patients, and to
provide the insured with a broad health service (monitoring
of pregnant women, perform minor surgeries, etc.).
Estonian Health Insurance Fund Annual Report 2006
The Context (Estonia)
• Area 45 000 sqkm
• ~1.4M inhabitants
• GDP per capita 12 300 EUR (2006)
• Health expenditure per capita 496 EUR;
5% of GDP (2006)
• Single public Health Insurance Fund
(85% of public and 63% of total HC
costs)
• ~800 family doctors practicing as
private entepreneurs (61% in solo
practices)
Map source: www.parks.it
High penetration of ICT in
primary care
Source: Development of the information society in Estonia as mirrored in European surveys
in 2003. Estonian Informatics Centre. Data from „eEurope+ Health Survey”, June 2003.
http://www.ria.ee/atp/?id=762 (Accessed January 12, 2006)
Everything grows ...
and some grow even more
The case of Estonia (timeline)
2002 Family Doctors’ Association started accreditation
2003 no payment differentiation by accreditation possible
2005 concept for P4P agreed between family doctors and
Health Insurance Fund (based on NHS example)
2006 first year of reporting on performance
2007 first payment according to results from 2006 (max 8%
of annual revenues);
second year of reporting;
adjustment of criteria
How does P4P work in Estonia?
Results from 2006
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Organisation matters
Bonus payment by capital area family physicians in 2006
Solo practice Group practice Polyclinic type Total sample
(N=35)
(N=65)
practice(N=13)
(N=113)
Proportion of
bonus payment
recipients
66%
52%
85%
60%
Proportion of
higher bonus
payment
recipients
4%
24%
0%
13%
Confounders and facilitators
• Introduction of the P4P parallel to robust
growth of overall healthcare and primary care
budget
• Initiative of family doctors’ leaders to praise the
colleagues who do good job
• Universal ICT backup
Challenges
•
Decreasing participation trend plus
differentiation(?) by performance
•
Financial reward very small
•
Future improvements of the programme
planned “carefully” and resistance is growing
•
Integration of overall health care system is
rather poor
Observations
• Large scale implementation of P4P: USA,
UK, Estonia
• Ideas evolving in most countries
• Actively promoted by the World Bank
(P. Schneider. “Provider Payment Reforms: Lessons from Europe and
America for South Eastern Europe”. WB Policy Note. October 2007)
International comparison
“Trial” in Estonia
Lessons learnt (by P Schneider)
Cost and administrative burden are key barriers Relatively low (ICT already implemented), but
still the issue causing most resistance
Careful monitoring needed to avoid unexpected
Ongoing; some independent analysis and
side effects
evaluation embedded
Incremental introduction to reduce risks
Easy to start, but missing the final (even if
temporary) goal
Public information to put pressure
Results publicly available; local media covers
extensively
Supporting wider health strategy necessary
Health insurance fund leadership is there, but
general health policy is too scattered
Performance effect is probably relatively small
Initial results vary promising among those who
participated voluntarily. Overall effect – too
close to call …
Back to basics
Control knobs
Financing
Intermediate
goals
Final goals
Efficiency
Health status
Quality
Satisfacion
Access
Risk
protection
Payment
Organization
Regulation
Behaviour
POLITICAL DECISIONS
Adapted from M Roberts et al. “Getting health reforms right”. OUP 2004
Risks & recommendations
•
•
•
•
Feasibility of implementation
Sufficiency of reward
Precision/predictability of outcomes
Adequacy of the tool for given goal
ES Fisher, NEJM Nov 2006