WellPoint’s New Pay-for-Performance Program to Pay Hospitals More for Meeting Quality Measures
Private payers taking first steps on a path toward value-based purchasing that could eventually include clinical pathology laboratory testing services
Pay-for-performance just took a leap forward with news that one of the nation’s largest health insurers will link hospital reimbursement to specific quality measures. This development could be a precursor to similar payer initiatives that involve how private payers reimburse clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups.
Indianapolis-based WellPoint, Inc. (NYSE: WLP) will revamp the way it reimburses about 1,500 hospitals across the country. In a news story published by Bloomberg Businessweek, Rick Wartzman, Executive Director of the Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University, explained that, going forward, WellPoint wants to base annual payment increases to hospitals using a formula that incorporates the health insurer’s quality criteria, rather than to the quantity of services delivered.
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