Financial incentives may be effective in changing healthcare professional practice .
We found no evidence from review s that examined the effect of financial incentives on patient outcomes
BACKGROUND There is considerable interest in the effectiveness of financial incentives in the delivery of health care .
Incentives may be used in an attempt to increase the use of evidence -based treatments among healthcare professionals or to stimulate health professionals to change their clinical behaviour with respect to preventive , diagnostic and treatment decisions , or both .
Financial incentives are an extrinsic source of motivation and exist when an individual can expect a monetary transfer which is made conditional on acting in a particular way .
Since there are numerous review s performed within the healthcare area describing the effects of various types of financial incentives , it is important to summarise the effectiveness of these in an overview to discern which are most effective in changing health professionals ' behaviour and patient outcomes .
OBJECTIVES To conduct an overview of systematic review s that evaluates the impact of financial incentives on healthcare professional behaviour and patient outcomes .
Prepayment with office-based physicians in publicly funded programs: results from the Children's Medicaid Program.
This paper is a report of the results of a demonstration design ed to provide empirical evidence regarding the effects of alternative approaches to paying physicians for serving children in the Medicaid program : ( 1 ) visit fees set at twice regular Medicaid fees in return for physician agreement to manage utilization and ( 2 ) capitation and financial risk-sharing along with the same physician agreement to manage utilization .  Participating physicians were assigned r and omly to either of the two payment groups . Comparisons of utilization and expenditures were made between these two plans and the regular Medicaid program ( fee-for-service , low fees ) . Results showed no adverse effect of capitation payments on primary care visits to office-based physicians . Capitation physician referrals to specialists decreased relative to all other groups studied , consistent with the theory that the financial incentives in capitation will lead primary care physicians to reduce referrals to specialists
Financial incentives may be effective in changing healthcare professional practice .
We found no evidence from review s that examined the effect of financial incentives on patient outcomes
BACKGROUND There is considerable interest in the effectiveness of financial incentives in the delivery of health care .
Incentives may be used in an attempt to increase the use of evidence -based treatments among healthcare professionals or to stimulate health professionals to change their clinical behaviour with respect to preventive , diagnostic and treatment decisions , or both .
Financial incentives are an extrinsic source of motivation and exist when an individual can expect a monetary transfer which is made conditional on acting in a particular way .
Since there are numerous review s performed within the healthcare area describing the effects of various types of financial incentives , it is important to summarise the effectiveness of these in an overview to discern which are most effective in changing health professionals ' behaviour and patient outcomes .
OBJECTIVES To conduct an overview of systematic review s that evaluates the impact of financial incentives on healthcare professional behaviour and patient outcomes .