Financial Incentives, Healthcare Providers and Quality Improvements: A Review of the Evidence

This report updates a 2007 review of international studies which examine the effect of financial incentives on the behaviour of healthcare organisations and individuals in relation to quality of care they delivery to consumers.  The authors use rigorous search strategies to highlight the key empirical studies which examine the links between financing incentives, health care provider and quality improvements.

In this review and synthesis they assess the quality of the evidence relating to the relationship between financial incentives for providers and quality improvement. Specifically, we address:

1. How effective are efforts to reward providers for improving the quality of care they provide or achieving benchmark levels of quality?

2. Whether, and to what degree, financial incentives intended to restrain costs and utilisation have had secondary effects on quality of care?