Harvard study of U.S. pay-for-performance health system finds no benefits

Harvard Medical School researchers found U.S. Medicare’s Value-Based Payment Modifier Program, designed to improve the value of care by rewarding doctors for their performance, failed. The findings raise doubts about whether the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) which replaced it will fare any better. The study concurred the Value Modifier program, which ran from 2013 to 2016, did not lower costs or improve care, and may have even made things worse in terms of equity. The research found the program shifted money away from doctors serving sicker, poorer patients because it didn’t properly account for differences across various patient populations in clinical and social risk factors for poor outcomes.