Pay-for-Performance Plan Increases Evidence-Based Drug Prescribing

October 15, 2020

PC3I Director Justin Bekelman, Advisory group member Amol Navathe, and Affiliate Atul Gupta, along with their coauthors, have completed the first study to demonstrate how a national insurer’s voluntary pay-for-performance (P4P) program can successfully incentivize oncologists to change their prescribing behavior to deliver higher-quality cancer care. A P4P program that offers enhanced reimbursement to oncology practices for prescribing high-quality, evidence-based cancer drugs increased use of these drugs without significantly changing total spending on care.

“We know that prescribing evidence-based cancer drugs is high-quality care and increases both the length and quality of life for patients with cancer,” said Dr. Bekelman. “And yet, changing prescribing patterns has been and remains a big challenge. Based on what we found here, paying oncology practices to prescribe evidence-based drugs can serve as a valuable tactic to improve the quality of cancer care.”

Informing policy-makers on research-based, innovative cancer care solutions is core to PC3I’s mission to improve cancer care. The study has been covered in several outlets, including:

Read the full news release at Penn Medicine News.

Justin E. Bekelman, MD; Atul Gupta, PhD; Ezra Fishman, PhD; David Debono, MD; Michael J. Fisch, MD, MPH; Ying Liu, PhD; Gosia Sylwestrzak, MA; John Barron, PharmD; and Amol S. Navathe, MD, PhD. (2020). Association Between a National Insurer’s Pay-for-Performance Program for Oncology and Changes in Prescribing of Evidence-Based Cancer Drugs and Spending. Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Related News