According to the results of a recent survey, the number of provider P4P programs has grown from 39 offerings in 2003 to 148 as of March of this year. The P4P and consumer incentive survey of 75 purchasers, U.S. government agencies, and health plans was conducted by San Francisco-based healthcare informatics company Med-Vantage and Washington, D.C.-based healthcare research firm the Leapfrog Group.

The survey found that:

• Since 2004, the top reason for implementing P4P remains improving clinical outcomes.
• More than 60 percent of P4P survey respondents have evaluated their programs and at least half find that clinical performance improved significantly.
• About one-third of all P4P survey respondents have demonstrated cost savings.
• Over 70 percent of all P4P programs are working to expand the scope or number of performance measures they use. P4P programs now rely largely on well-established or co-authored measures from national standard setting organizations such as: the AQA (formerly known as the Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance), the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), the National Quality Forum (NQF), the Joint Commission, the Leapfrog Group and others.
• Over 30 percent of P4P survey respondents posted information publicly on provider performance in their provider directories.
• Advanced P4P programs are now developing tools to measure improvements in outcomes and eligibility for rewards directly from medical charts.