Can You Get What You Pay For? Pay-For-Performance and the Quality of Healthcare Providers
Despite the popularity of pay-for-performance (P4P) among health policymakers and private insurers as a tool for improving quality of care, there is little empirical basis for its effectiveness. We use data from published performance reports of physician medical groups contracting with a large network HMO to compare clinical quality before and after the implementation of P4P, relative to a control group. We consider the effect of P4P on both rewarded and unrewarded dimensions of quality. In the end, we fail to find evidence that a large P4P initiative either resulted in major improvement in quality or notable disruption in care.
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Copy CitationKathleen J. Mullen, Richard G. Frank, and Meredith B. Rosenthal, "Can You Get What You Pay For? Pay-For-Performance and the Quality of Healthcare Providers," NBER Working Paper 14886 (2009), https://doi.org/10.3386/w14886.Download Citation
Published Versions
Kathleen J. Mullen & Richard G. Frank & Meredith B. Rosenthal, 2010. "Can you get what you pay for? Pay-for-performance and the quality of healthcare providers," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 41(1), pages 64-91. citation courtesy of 
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