For the third year in a row, UCLA Medical Group has been rated one of California's top-performing physician organizations by the Integrated Healthcare Association. Rankings are based on important health care quality measures, including preventive care, chronic care management, patient satisfaction and enhanced use of information technology.
The best performers — those who scored in the top 20 percent overall — were selected from among the 235 medical groups participating in the association's Pay for Performance (P4P) program. UCLA was one of 47 California medical groups chosen. Integrated Healthcare's P4P program, the largest physician incentive program in the United States, enables physician groups to receive financial rewards from participating health plans based on quality measures for clinical care, patient experience and use of information technology.
According to the association, clinical quality measures accounted for 50 percent of the scores, while patient satisfaction accounted for 30 percent and IT accounted for the remaining 20 percent.
"The idea of these programs is to continuously improve on the care being provided to patients," said Dr. Samuel A. Skootsky, medical director of the UCLA Medical Group. "It requires performance measurement and feedback to physicians and staff. This is important for preventive and chronic care, as well as the patient experience. We work hard on behalf of our patients to achieve these results."
"California physician groups continue to lead the nation through their commitment to improving quality and meeting the highest standards of patient safety," said Don Crane, chief executive officer of the California Association of Physician Groups. "Pay for performance, in some form, is here to stay, and California's approach demonstrates that competing health plans and physician groups can cooperate to create rational incentives that support better quality of care."
"UCLA has been justifiably proud of its capacity to treat the most complex illnesses," said Dr. Thomas E. Sibert, president of the UCLA Faculty Practice Group and a UCLA associate vice chancellor. "We are also proud to be among the most proficient in the more usual types of care. It is very rare to be able to claim both."
The Integrated Healthcare Association is a not-for-profit statewide collaborative leadership group made up of California health plans, physician groups and health care systems, as well as academic, consumer, purchaser, pharmaceutical and technology representatives. The association promotes quality improvement, accountability and affordability for the benefit of all California consumers through special projects, policy innovation and education. For more information, visit www.iha.org.
UCLA Medical Group is primarily composed of faculty physicians of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Organized in 1987, the medical group provides services to health plan members in most major HMOs and Medicare Advantage plans as well as patients enrolled in PPOs, Medicare, state-sponsored and indemnity insurance plans or seen by referral. For more information, visit www.uclahealth.org or call (310) 302-1300.
