August 21, 2007
Bridges to Excellence Physician Reward Program Expands National Presence – from Maine to Georgia
August 16, 2007
Research Triangle Area Health Care Collaborative Launches Bridges to Excellence® Initiative to Improve Quality and Lower Costs
August 1, 2007
Charlotte Health Care Collaborative Launches Bridges to Excellence Initiative to Improve Quality and Lower Costs
May 17, 2007
Awards Recognizing Leadership in Incentives & Rewards Presented at National Employer Symposium
May 7, 2007
Aetna Introduces Bridges to Excellence™ in Washington State
May 4, 2007
Bridges to Excellence Launches New Spine Care Physician Reward Program
April 23, 2007
Colorado Springs Mayor Supports Bridges to Excellence Programs
April 18, 2007
Aetna Introduces Bridges to Excellence™ in Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia
February 2, 2007
Major Business Groups Release Guide for Employers to Promote Value-Driven Health Care
December 18, 2006
Bridges to Excellence names new officers and directors
Silicon Valley effort recognized as BTE initiative
December 6, 2006
Bridges to Excellence Helps Employers Achieve Bush Administration’s “Cornerstones” for Health Care Purchasing
BTE Commends Secretary Leavitt for Unprecedented Scope
November 8, 2006
Bridges to Excellence and Healthgrades Partner
October 31, 2006
The American Health Care Quality Association and Bridges To Excellence Team-up To Recognize Physician Practice Excellence
May 17, 2006
Bridges to Excellence announces the Recipient of the First Annual Leadership Award - Robert S. Galvin, MD, - Director of Corporate Health Care and Medical Services for General Electric
April 4, 2006
Bridges to Excellence and eHealth Initiative Form New Business Agreement
September 4, 2007
P4Ps on the rise; some question use of plans - Andis Robeznieks - Modern Healthcare
August 28, 2007
Practicing What They Preach: GSK Announces Employee Wellness Initiative - GSK press release on CNN Money
July 16, 2007
Gaming the System - Incentive schemes often lead to gaming schemes. Will pay-for-performance programs follow suit? - Brian Robinson - Government Health IT
July 11, 2007
First-ever Best Practices in Consumer Empowerment and Protection Awards and Conference Spotlight Health Care's Best - URAC press release
May 21, 2007
How Employers Can Help Create a High Performance Health System - Karen Davis, PhD - The Commonwealth Fund
May 16, 2006
Better Ways to Treat Back Pain - Insurers, Employers Target Excessive Scans and Surgeries to Improve Patient Outcomes - Laura Landro - Wall Street Journal
April 19, 2007
Hewitt Study Shows Companies Plan to Invest More in the Health of Their Employees - Hewitt Associates press release
March 27, 2007
Measuring the Hard Way - Francois de Brantes, National Coordinator, Bridges to Excellence, letter published in response to the essay Clinical Concerns About Clinical Performance Measurement - Rachel M. Werner, MD, PhD & David A. Asch, MD, MBA - Annals of Family Medicine
February 21, 2007
Pay-for-Performance: Will the Latest Payment Trend Improve Care? - Meredith B. Rosenthal, PhD & R. Adams Dudley, MD, MBA - JAMA
July 31, 2006
Minnesota Governor Pawlenty Introduces Health Care Initiative To Improve Quality And Save Costs - Minnesota Governor's Office, All American Patriots
July 29, 2006
Newt Gingrich and Novo Nordisk Join Georgia Business and Health Care Leaders in a Call-to-Action to Combat the Diabetes Epidemic - CDC; American Diabetes Association; GA Dept. of Human Resources, Public Health Division, Hispanicbusiness.com
June 2006
A Healthy Health Care Market: the Value Index - Marc Berg, Wim Schellekens, Francois de Brantes, Excerpt of Editorial – International Journal for Quality in Health Care
June 29, 2006
Pay-for-performance and beyond: A recipe for improving health care - Francois de Brantes, National Coordinator, Bridges to Excellence
BTE on Fox News in MPEG: Run Time 2.06 min
BTE was featured in this Fox News broadcast on May 16, 2005. In it you will hear broadly about Bridges To Excellence and also see and hear about two concerns with respect to any program that offers financial incentives to physicians for delivering a higher level of quality care. Here are these two objections and the associated responses from BTE.
Concern #1: Physicians should not be rewarded for what we should expect them to do today.
BTE's Response: Physicians around the country are delivering the care that they are contracted for by health plans while delivering average to slightly above-average care. BTE programs are designed to encourage significant improvements in the quality of care and require tremendous effort on the part of physicians to re-engineer their practices. This effort requires time and resources from the physicians in a practice and needs to be encouraged in the same way that any other industry encourages its participants that perform better. Many countries around the world are engaged in similar efforts, recognizing that paying the same to every physician does not encourage them to perform better than their peers.
Concern #2: Physicians will be encouraged to take care of healthier patients and get rid of their sicker ones.
BTE's Response: The Bridges To Excellence programs give bonuses to doctors on a per patient basis. As such, if a physician loses a patient, they also lose the bonus, which means that they have a direct incentive to keep all their patients and care for them. In the current markets in which BTE is active, we have found that recognized physicians are actually eager to see more patients for whom they can get a bonus, not fewer.
Every incentive program always has the potential for unintended consequences and we have established strong reporting and control mechanisms to flag issues and mitigate against them.