Technology firms pushing tech bonus pay for doctors

Three major companies have rolled out a pay-for-performance program in northern California to accelerate doctor adoption of information technology.

By Tyler Chin, AMNews staff. Feb. 27, 2006.

Three nationally prominent technology firms have launched a new initiative to financially reward doctors who use technology to share information and improve care.

Under the Silicon Valley Information Technology Pay-for-Performance Consortium initiative, Cisco Systems, Intel and Oracle plan to offer a total of $1.05 million to seven participating medical groups and independent practice associations in northern California that treat a large number -- 5,000 to 10,000 -- of the technology companies' employees.

Based on how the groups use technology for evidence-based care, care management and patient education, Camino Medical Group, Kaiser Permanente, Palo Alto Medical Foundation, San Jose Medical Group, Santa Clara County IPA, Santa Cruz Medical Foundation and Stanford Hospital and Clinics each could earn up to $50,000 in extra pay from each technology company -- up to $150,000 total, said Jeffrey Rideout, MD, Cisco's corporate medical director.

"The main goal of the program is to accelerate adoption and use of proven health information technologies such as electronic medical records and electronic prescribing," Dr. Rideout said. He said the technology companies did not form the consortium as a way to get the medical groups to buy their products, which generally are the electronic guts of a computer or the Internet.

Their pay-for-performance initiative also is meant to supplement the pay-for-performance program administered by Integrated Healthcare Assn. of Oakland, Calif. In 2003 and 2004, 225 medical groups and IPAs in California collected nearly $90 million in bonus payments from seven insurers sponsoring the IHA program.