Ama Policy

Pay-for-Performance Principles and Guidelines H-450.947

03/13/2019
Profiling, Risk—Physicians Taking

1. The following Principles for Pay-for-Performance and Guidelines for Pay-for-Performance are the official policy of our AMA.

PRINCIPLES FOR PAY-FOR-PERFORMANCE PROGRAMS

Physician pay-for-performance (PFP) programs that are designed primarily to improve the effectiveness and safety of patient care may serve as a positive force in our health care system. Fair and ethical PFP programs are patient-centered and link evidence-based performance measures to financial incentives. Such PFP programs are in alignment with the following five AMA principles:

1. Ensure quality of care – Fair and ethical PFP programs are committed to improved patient care as their most important mission. Evidence-based quality of care measures, created by physicians across appropriate specialties, are the measures used in the programs. Variations in an individual patient care regimen are permitted based on a physician’s sound clinical judgment and should not adversely affect PFP program rewards.

2. Foster the patient/physician relationship – Fair and ethical PFP programs support the patient/physician relationship and overcome obstacles to physicians treating patients, regardless of patients’ health conditions, ethnicity, economic circumstances, demographics, or treatment compliance patterns.

3. Offer voluntary physician participation – Fair and ethical PFP programs offer voluntary physician participation, and do not undermine the economic viability of non-participating physician practices. These programs support participation by physicians in all practice settings by minimizing potential financial and technological barriers including costs of start-up.

4. Use accurate data and fair reporting – Fair and ethical PFP programs use accurate data and scientifically valid analytical methods. Physicians are allowed to review, comment and appeal results prior to the use of the results for programmatic reasons and any type of reporting.

5. Provide fair and equitable program incentives – Fair and ethical PFP programs provide new funds for positive incentives to physicians for their participation, progressive quality improvement, or attainment of goals within the program. The eligibility criteria for the incentives are fully explained to participating physicians. These programs support the goal of quality improvement across all participating physicians.

GUIDELINES FOR PAY-FOR-PERFORMANCE PROGRAMS

Safe, effective, and affordable health care for all Americans is the AMA’s goal for our health care delivery system. The AMA presents the following guidelines regarding the formation and implementation of fair and ethical pay-for-performance (PFP) programs. These guidelines augment the AMA’s “Principles for Pay-for-Performance Programs” and provide AMA leaders, staff and members with operational boundaries that can be used in an assessment of specific PFP programs.

Quality of Care

– The primary goal of any PFP program must be to promote quality patient care that is safe and effective across the health care delivery system, rather than to achieve monetary savings.

– Evidence-based quality of care measures must be the primary measures used in any program.

1. All performance measures used in the program must be prospectively defined and developed collaboratively across physician specialties.

2. Practicing physicians with expertise in the area of care in question must be integrally involved in the design, implementation, and evaluation of any program.

3. All performance measures must be developed and maintained by appropriate professional organizations that periodically review and update these measures with evidence-based information in a process open to the medical profession.

4. Performance measures should be scored against both absolute values and relative improvement in those values.

5. Performance measures must be subject to the best-available risk- adjustment for patient demographics, severity of illness, and co-morbidities.

6. Performance measures must be kept current and reflect changes in clinical practice. Except for evidence-based updates, program measures must be stable for two years.

7. Performance measures must be selected for clinical areas that have significant promise for improvement.

– Physician adherence to PFP program requirements must conform with improved patient care quality and safety.

– Programs should allow for variance from specific performance measures that are in conflict with sound clinical judgment and, in so doing, require minimal, but appropriate, documentation.

– PFP programs must be able to demonstrate improved quality patient care that is safer and more effective as the result of program implementation.

– PFP programs help to ensure quality by encouraging collaborative efforts across all members of the health care team.

– Prior to implementation, pay-for-performance programs must be successfully pilot-tested for a sufficient duration to obtain valid data in a variety of practice settings and across all affected medical specialties. Pilot testing should also analyze for patient de-selection. If implemented, the program must be phased-in over an appropriate period of time to enable participation by any willing physician in affected specialties.

– Plans that sponsor PFP programs must prospectively explain these programs to the patients and communities covered by them.

Patient/Physician Relationship

– Programs must be designed to support the patient/physician relationship and recognize that physicians are ethically required to use sound medical judgment, holding the best interests of the patient as paramount.

– Programs must not create conditions that limit access to improved care.

1. Programs must not directly or indirectly disadvantage patients from ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic groups, as well as those with specific medical conditions, or the physicians who serve these patients.

2. Programs must neither directly nor indirectly disadvantage patients and their physicians, based on the setting where care is delivered or the location of populations served (such as inner city or rural areas).

– Programs must neither directly nor indirectly encourage patient de-selection.

– Programs must recognize outcome limitations caused by patient non-adherence, and sponsors of PFP programs should attempt to minimize non-adherence through plan design.

Physician Participation

– Physician participation in any PFP program must be completely voluntary.

– Sponsors of PFP programs must notify physicians of PFP program implementation and offer physicians the opportunity to opt in or out of the PFP program without affecting the existing or offered contract provisions from the sponsoring health plan or employer.

– Programs must be designed so that physician nonparticipation does not threaten the economic viability of physician practices.

– Programs should be available to any physicians and specialties who wish to participate and must not favor one specialty over another. Programs must be designed to encourage broad physician participation across all modes of practice.

– Programs must not favor physician practices by size (large, small, or solo) or by capabilities in information technology (IT).

1. Programs should provide physicians with tools to facilitate participation.

2. Programs should be designed to minimize financial and technological barriers to physician participation.

– Although some IT systems and software may facilitate improved patient management, programs must avoid implementation plans that require physician practices to purchase health-plan specific IT capabilities.

– Physician participation in a particular PFP program must not be linked to participation in other health plan or government programs.

– Programs must educate physicians about the potential risks and rewards inherent in program participation, and immediately notify participating physicians of newly identified risks and rewards.

– Physician participants must be notified in writing about any changes in program requirements and evaluation methods. Such changes must occur at most on an annual basis.

Physician Data and Reporting

– Patient privacy must be protected in all data collection, analysis, and reporting. Data collection must be administratively simple and consistent with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

– The quality of data collection and analysis must be scientifically valid. Collecting and reporting of data must be reliable and easy for physicians and should not create financial or other burdens on physicians and/or their practices. Audit systems should be designed to ensure the accuracy of data in a non-punitive manner.

1. Programs should use accurate administrative data and data abstracted from medical records.

2. Medical record data should be collected in a manner that is not burdensome and disruptive to physician practices.

3. Program results must be based on data collected over a significant period of time and relate care delivered (numerator) to a statistically valid population of patients in the denominator.

– Physicians must be reimbursed for any added administrative costs incurred as a result of collecting and reporting data to the program.

– Physicians should be assessed in groups and/or across health care systems, rather than individually, when feasible.

– Physicians must have the ability to review and comment on data and analysis used to construct any performance ratings prior to the use of such ratings to determine physician payment or for public reporting.

1. Physicians must be able to see preliminary ratings and be given the opportunity to adjust practice patterns over a reasonable period of time to more closely meet quality objectives.

2. Prior to release of any physician ratings, programs must have a mechanism for physicians to see and appeal their ratings in writing. If requested by the physician, physician comments must be included adjacent to any ratings.

– If PFP programs identify physicians with exceptional performance in providing effective and safe patient care, the reasons for such performance should be shared with physician program participants and widely promulgated.

– The results of PFP programs must not be used against physicians in health plan credentialing, licensure, and certification. Individual physician quality performance information and data must remain confidential and not subject to discovery in legal or other proceedings.

– PFP programs must have defined security measures to prevent the unauthorized release of physician ratings.

Program Rewards

– Programs must be based on rewards and not on penalties.

– Program incentives must be sufficient in scope to cover any additional work and practice expense incurred by physicians as a result of program participation.

– Programs must offer financial support to physician practices that implement IT systems or software that interact with aspects of the PFP program.

– Programs must finance bonus payments based on specified performance measures with supplemental funds.

– Programs must reward all physicians who actively participate in the program and who achieve pre-specified absolute program goals or demonstrate pre-specified relative improvement toward program goals.

– Programs must not reward physicians based on ranking compared with other physicians in the program.

– Programs must provide to all eligible physicians and practices a complete explanation of all program facets, to include the methods and performance measures used to determine incentive eligibility and incentive amounts, prior to program implementation.

– Programs must not financially penalize physicians based on factors outside of the physician’s control.

– Programs utilizing bonus payments must be designed to protect patient access and must not financially disadvantage physicians who serve minority or uninsured patients.

– Programs must not financially penalize physicians when they follow current, accepted clinical guidelines that are different from measures adopted by payers, especially when measures have not been updated to meet currently accepted guidelines.

2. Our AMA opposes private payer, Congressional, or Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services pay-for-performance initiatives if they do not meet the AMA’s “Principles and Guidelines for Pay-for-Performance.”

Policy Timeline

BOT Rep. 5, A-05 Reaffirmation A-06 Reaffirmed: Res. 210, A-06 Reaffirmed in lieu of Res. 215, A-06 Reaffirmed in lieu of Res. 226, A-06 Reaffirmation I-06 Reaffirmation A-07 Reaffirmation A-09 Reaffirmed: BOT Rep. 18, A-09 Reaffirmed in lieu of Res. 808, I-10 Modified: BOT Rep. 8, I-11 Reaffirmed: Sub. Res. 226, I-13 Appended: BOT Rep. 1, I-14 Reaffirmed in lieu of Res. 203, I-15 Reaffirmed in lieu of Res. 216, I-15 Reaffirmation I-15 Reaffirmed: BOT Rep. 20, A-16 Reaffirmed in lieu of: Res. 712, A-17 Reaffirmation: A-18 Reaffirmation: A-22