Addressing disparities in diabetes care with pay for performance

The Foundation's initiative, Finding Answers: Disparities Research for Change, was designed to use research and evaluation to test hypothetical solutions for reducing racial and ethnic disparities in health care settings and actual disparity reduction outcomes in ongoing programs.Hudson Health Plan (HHP), a Medicaid-focused not-for-profit managed care plan, will assess the effectiveness of its pay-for-performance program in reducing disparities in diabetes care for racial and ethnic minorities. The plan's program will use operating funds to reward primary care professionals a bonus aimed at improving the quality of care for all Plan members with diabetes, nearly three-quarters of whom belong to racial and ethnic minorities. HHP's program rewards patient-centered care rather than population-wide results. The evaluation will address concerns that pay-for-performance programs may exacerbate disparities by evaluating whether the program has improved both process and intermediate outcome measures of diabetes quality of care among racial and ethnic minority enrollees. Primary care providers will be surveyed to learn their views on the design of the program and their satisfaction with it. The evaluation will also attempt to quantify barriers to adoption of such a program and evaluate the impact of a pay-for-performance program on utilization and total health plan spending for racial and ethnic minority enrollees with diabetes. If outcomes have improved, the program could provide a model for other health plans that serve minority populations and thereby help to reduce disparities.

Grant Details

Amount Awarded $197,456.00

Awarded on: 4/22/2008

Time frame: 5/1/2008 - 3/31/2010

Grant Number: 64250