Clinical Documentation Physician Compensation Incentives

Clinical documentation which omits significant medical details negatively affects communication among physicians and impedes the diagnostic process. Clinical documentation may be improved by using compensation incentives. Therefore, compensation incentives are a compelling mechanism to promote documentation of significant medical details to improve the diagnostic process.

The investigators' proposed project will use physician compensation incentives to improve documentation of clinically significant details for six common diagnoses in outpatient general internal medicine. The investigators will choose clinically significant details which more accurately represent patient complexity, improve the diagnostic process, and have potential to improve patient outcomes. To determine whether compensation incentives improve documentation of clinically significant details, the investigators will compare physicians' baseline documentation to incentivized documentation. The purpose of the investigators' project is to improve communication of clinically significant diagnostic information among physicians, thereby reducing suboptimal treatment plans, overuse, medical error, and cognitive burden upon physicians.

Implementation: The investigators' proposed project will use physician compensation incentives to improve documentation of clinically significant details for six common diagnoses in outpatient general internal medicine. The purpose of the program is to improve clinical documentation in order to reduce misdiagnosis and medical errors. The investigators will invite 30-35 primary care physicians in internal medicine and family medicine within Rush University Medical Group to participate. The investigators will review participants' office visit notes for clinical documentation that meets pre-specified criteria. The investigators anticipate that physicians will receive a $5-$10 compensation bonus for each office visit progress note that meets clinical criteria. The investigators' program will be in effect for 3-months. The average performing physician is expected to receive $650-$700 in compensation incentives over the entire 3-month period (higher performing physicians expected to earn $1,000 or above for superior performance).

Approach: To determine whether compensation incentives improve documentation of clinically significant details, the investigators will compare physicians' baseline documentation (during a 6-week run-in period) to incentivized documentation (a 3-month period when physicians will receive compensation incentives for their clinical documentation). Two research assistants will perform retrospective chart review and audits of office visit progress notes. Notes will be scored for whether documentation includes pre-specified clinically significant information. For example, if a patient has had a Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT), the investigators would assess whether the month of onset of the DVT and duration of anticoagulation therapy was documented in the note. The investigators anticipate that compensation incentives will improve physicians' clinical documentation of clinically significant medical details. The investigators' results will be reported in aggregate at the physician-level.

Participation: 30-35 physicians will be invited to participate in both the incentives program and analysis comparing baseline performance to incentivized performance. If a physician opts out of the analysis, that participant will not be eligible for compensation incentives. The investigators chose a sample of 30-35 physicians so that the study has enough power to detect a significant difference in performance in clinical documentation during the incentivized period compared to baseline.

Risks to patients: The investigators will use patient-level data as covariates in the analysis. The investigators' analysis will occur in a similar fashion as other retrospective studies, whereby patient-level information will be used from individual office visits in the analysis. Patient-level information will be de-identified as quickly as possible and precautions will be made to keep patient and physician-level data secure.

Eligibility Criteria:
Inclusion Criteria:

* Physicians, PA's, and NP's at any of 8 pre-selected Rush practice sites.
* Clinical FTE \>40%

Exclusion Criteria:

• Physicians, PA's, or NP's who have a significant change in clinical FTE or scheduled patient volume during the intervention

Equitable considerations include: Enrolling all clinicians (MD/DO, PA, NP) at each practice. Physicians with \<40% FTE are expected to be eligible to earn low amounts of income from the program (estimated around less than $300 before taxes over 3-month period), hence the investigators will exclude them due to poor motivating force of this total incentive and adverse impacts on the statistical analysis.