Shared Cash Incentives Help Patients, Providers Meet Goals in Cholesterol Control

Posted by & filed under Uncategorized.

safety-lane.com 07105
chiropractic-lane.com
NEWARK 
http://bit.ly/1DCt06V


Shared Cash Incentives Help Patients, Providers Meet Goals in Cholesterol Control


Use of financial incentives to reduce low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels in primary care is effective only when patients and physicians share those incentives, suggests a cluster randomized trial published in the November 10 issue of JAMA.
The researchers conducted the 12-month trial in three US healthcare systems using a fee-for-service model. The researchers randomly assigned patients and physicians to the shared incentive group, the patient-only incentive group, the physician-only incentive group, or the control group, in which no incentives were given. Results showed that a strategy of shared incentives, whereby the patient and physician split about $1000 if they achieved an LDL-C goal, significantly reduced levels, with a difference of 8.5 mg/dL when compared with the control group. In contrast, there was no significant relative reduction when the incentives were given to either party alone, or to the control group.
“The superiority of a shared approach makes sense because success at LDL-C reduction is likely to be driven by both provision of medication by physicians and patient adherence to that medication,” the authors write.
“This reduction was modest, however, and further information is needed to understand whether this approach represents good value,” they conclude.
The findings are really not unexpected, according to first author David A. Asch, MD, director of the Center for Health Care Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania, professor at the Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School, and a physician at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
“Doctors and patients need to work together toward important clinical goals, so we shouldn’t be too surprised that the combination, the sharing of incentives, is what’s required to get people to the finish line,” he commented in a prepared audio statement. “I think this study demonstrates that shared incentives can work in achieving important patient goals.”

via Blogger http://bit.ly/1S70D4m