Pay-for-performance incentive program in a large dental group practice

Painless cost control as a central strategy for universal oral health coverage: A critical review with policy guide

AIM

This study aimed to critically review the methods used to control the significantly increasing costs of dental care.

METHODS

Through a comprehensive search of the available literature, the cost control (CC) mechanisms for health services were identified from a healthcare system perspective. The probable applicability of each CC method was evaluated mainly based on its potential contribution to oral health promotion. Each mechanism was then classified and discussed under any of the two headings of financing and service provision. An operational guide was finally presented for policy-making in each of the three main models of healthcare systems, including National Health Services, social/public health insurance and private insurance.

RESULTS

From a total of 142 articles/reports retrieved in PubMed, 73 in Scopus and 791 in Google Scholar, 35 were included in the final review after eliminating the duplicates and screening process. Totally ten mechanisms were identified for CC of dental care. Seven were discussed under the financing function, including cost sharing, preauthorization, mixed payment method and an evidence-based approach to benefit package definition, among others. Three further methods were classified under the service provision function, including workforce skill mix with emphasis on primary oral healthcare providers, development of primary healthcare (PHC) network and an appropriate use of tele-dentistry.

CONCLUSION

Painless control of dental expenditures requires a smart integration of prevention into the CC plans. The suggested policy guide emphasizes organizational factors; particularly including the development of PHC-based networks with midlevel providers (desirably extended-duty dental hygienists) as the frontline oral healthcare providers.

Impact of a Clinician Incentive Program on Quality Measures Performance in a Medicare Shared Savings Accountable Care Organization

Financial incentives are often used to encourage and reward clinicians for achieving specific outcomes; however, there is limited data on their effectiveness. This study evaluates the impact of NewYork Quality Care's Clinician Incentive Program on improving quality measure performance over 4 years. Clinicians including primary care physicians and specialists actively opted-in to an incentive program where their quality performance was evaluated and rewarded biannually. Using Medicare Shared Savings Program data extracted for quality measures (2016-2019), this study analyzes quality measure performance between clinicians who opted-in to the program compared to those who did not. Additional analysis was performed comparing primary care clinician and specialist performance. The analysis revealed that clinicians in the incentive program significantly outperform (P < 0.05) clinicians who chose not to join the program in 6 of the 7 quality measures. In addition, the program helped facilitate discussions with clinicians more broadly in population health efforts.

Pay-for-performance and dental procedures: A longitudinal analysis of the Brazilian Program for the Improvement of Access and Quality of Dental Specialities Centres

OBJECTIVE

Evaluate the impact of a pay-for-performance program on changes in the number of dental procedures performed by public secondary dental care services in Brazil.

METHODS

A longitudinal study was carried out with 932 public Dental Specialities Centres (Centro de Especialidades Odontológicas - CEO) that participated in the pay-for-performance Program for the Improvement of Access and Quality of Dental Specialities Centres Services (PMAQ/CEO) and 379 non-CEO centres with secondary dental production. The non-CEO and a group of CEOs did not receive financial incentives from the PMAQ-CEO and served as control groups. Three CEOs groups received additional financial incentives of 20%, 60% or 100% over maintenance values, based on their performance scores. The outcome was the increase (yes/no) in the number of dental procedures between 2011/2013 and 2015/2017. Analyses were carried out using logistic regressions.

RESULTS

The number of specialized procedures increased in 48.4% of the services, 44.6% among non-CEO, 52.3% among CEO with no financial incentive and 59.1% among CEO with 100% incentive. The fully adjusted model showed that CEOs receiving 100% of the financial incentive had greater odds of increasing the production of dental procedures (OR = 1.65, 95%CI: 1.09-2.51). Services that increased the number of specialist dentists had (OR = 2.35, 95%CI 1.88-2.94). Municipalities that increased in coverage of private dental insurance had OR = 0.98 (95%CI: 0.94-1.02), and those with higher coverage of primary dental care had OR = 1.02 (95%CI: 0.99-1.05).

CONCLUSION

Pay-for-performance may increase the production of dental procedures by CEOs, and mechanisms explaining it must be further investigated.

A Systematic Literature Review of Quality Management Initiatives in Dental Clinics

By considering the recently proposed definitions and metrics, oral healthcare quality management (OHQM) emerges as a distinct field in the wider healthcare area. The goal of this paper is to systematically review quality management initiatives (QMIs) implementation by dental clinics. The research methodology approach is a review of 72 sources that have been analyzed using the Context-Intervention-Mechanism-Outcome Framework (CIMO). The analysis identifies five mechanisms that explain how quality management initiatives are implemented by dental clinics. The simplest QMIs implementations are related to (1) overall quality. The next ones, in terms of complexity, are related to (2) patient satisfaction, (3) service quality, (4) internal processes improvement, and (5) business outcomes. This paper is the first attempt to provide a critical review of this topic and represents an important advancement by providing a theoretical framework that explains how quality management is implemented by practitioners in this field. The results can be used by scholars for advancing their studies related to this emerging research area and by healthcare managers in order to better implement their quality management initiatives.

Impacts of innovation in dental care delivery and payment in Medicaid managed care for children and adolescents

Background

We evaluated a 14-county quality improvement program of care delivery and payment of a dental care organization for child and adolescent managed care Medicaid beneficiaries after 2 years of implementation.

Methods

Counties were randomly assigned to either the intervention (PREDICT) or control group. Using Medicaid administrative data, difference-in-difference regression models were used to estimate PREDICT intervention effects (formally, “average marginal effects”) on dental care utilization and costs to Medicaid, controlling for patient and county characteristics.

Results

Average marginal effects of PREDICT on expected use and expected cost of services per patient (child or adolescent) per quarter were small and insignificant for most service categories. There were statistically significant effects of PREDICT (p < .05), though still small, for certain types of service:

Expected number of diagnostic services per patient-quarter increased by .009 units;

Expected number of sealants per patient-quarter increased by .003 units, and expected cost by $0.06;

Total expected cost per patient-quarter for all services increased by $0.64.

These consistent positive effects of PREDICT on diagnostic and certain preventive services (i.e., sealants) were not accompanied by increases in more costly service types (i.e., restorations) or extractions.

Conclusion

The major hypothesis that primary dental care (selected preventive services and diagnostic services in general) would increase significantly over time in PREDICT counties relative to controls was supported. There were small but statistically significant, increases in differential use of diagnostic services and sealants. Total cost per beneficiary rose modestly, but restorative and dental costs did not. The findings suggest favorable developments within PREDICT counties in enhanced preventive and diagnostic procedures, while holding the line on expensive restorative and extraction procedures.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-021-06549-3.

Implementation of altered provider incentives for a more individual-risk-based assignment of dental recall intervals: evidence from a health systems reform in Denmark

Equipping health systems with suitable incentives for efficient resource allocation remains a major health policy challenge. This study examines the impacts of 2015 regulatory changes in Danish dental care which aimed at effectuating a transition from six-to-twelve-monthly dental recall intervals, for every patient, towards a model where patients with higher need receive dental recalls systematically more frequently than patients with lower need. Exploiting administrative data from the years 2012-2016 from the Danish National Health Insurance database containing 72,155,539 treatment claims for 3,759,721 unique patients, we estimated a series of interrupted time-series regression models with patient-level fixed-effects. In comparison to the pre-reform period, the proportion of patients with recall intervals of up to 6 months was by 1.2%-points larger post-implementation; that of patients with 6-12-monthly recalls increased by 0.7%-points; that of patients with more than 12-monthly dental recalls decreased by 1.9%-points. The composition of care shifted more substantially: the proportion of treatment sessions including preventive care increased by 31.5%-points (95%-CI: 31.4;31.6); that of sessions including scaling increased by 24.1%-points (24.0;24.2); that of sessions including diagnostics decreased by 34.5%-points (34.4;34.6). These findings suggest that dental care providers may have responded differently to regulatory changes than intended by the health policy.