Developing a Statewide Diabetes Care Physician Incentive Program Among Payers

In 2008, NYHealth established a five-year, $35 million Diabetes Campaign to reverse the diabetes epidemic.

The Campaign focuses on improving clinical care and patient outcomes; mobilizing communities to prevent diabetes and support diabetes self-management; and promoting policies that sustain comprehensive and effective care for people with diabetes. A range of demonstrations and studies show that patients have consistently better health outcomes when physicians improve their practices. Well-designed and standardized incentive payments have also been documented as motivating physicians to improving their practices. Yet in New York State, there is a lack of a common framework among payers for developing, measuring, or paying incentives.

The Bridges to Excellence (BTE) grant supported the Foundation’s efforts to promote payment incentives for primary care physicians that would ultimately improve the quality of care delivered to patients at-risk for or diagnosed with diabetes.