Dive Brief:
- Last year, UnitedHealthcare paid more than $148 million in bonus payments to primary care doctors for improving health outcomes in Medicare Advantage plans.
- According to the Minnetonka, MN-based insurer, nearly 1,900 physicians received the bonuses for hitting performance metrics in the insurer’s PATH program.
- UnitedHealthcare created PATH to encourage use of preventive healthcare services and proactive monitoring of chronic conditions.
Dive Insight:
Since establishing PATH in 2013, UnitedHealthcare has paid out more than $213 million in bonuses. Close to a million of the firm’s Medicare Advantage members are cared for by doctors who participate in the program.
“These awards are one of the ways we are supporting the transition to a value-based health care system that rewards physicians for the quality of care they deliver to the people we serve,” Efrem Castillo, chief medical officer of Medicare & Retirement, said in a release.
The company said its total payments to providers for value-based arrangements has tripled in the past three years to $48 billion. That figure is expected to reach $65 billion by the end of 2018.
UnitedHealthcare is not alone. Aetna, Anthem and Cigna are also paying doctors tens of billions of dollars in value-based payments, Forbes reports.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has committed to shifting 50% of Medicare payments to value-based payment models by 2018.