Quality Performance Measures: The Tie That Binds Reimbursement, Licensure, Certification, and Continuing Medical Education

Abstract

With the goal of increasing the number of patients treated by high-quality health-care providers, efforts to measure and reward quality care have grown exponentially during the last decade. There are currently more than 100 active pay-for-performance (P4P) projects nationally [5]. Congress, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), private payers, and many employers are moving forward with implementation of P4P programs or variations thereof.The P4P process relies on a combination of quality measures, including clinical outcomes, clinical processes, structural factors, and patient satisfaction. Many of the measures