• Richard K Leuchter, Catherine A Sarkisian, Rebecca Trotzky-Sirr, Eric K Wei, Carmen A Carrillo, Sitaram Vangala, Charles Coffey, Brad Spellberg, Oleg Melamed, Arthur C Jeng, and John N Mafi.
• Division of General Internal Medicine & Health Services Research, Department of Internal Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, 1100 Glendon Ave, Ste 726, Los Angeles, CA 90024. Email: rleuchter@mednet.ucla.edu.
• Am J Manag Care. 2023 Oct 1; 29 (10): 488496488-496.

ObjectivesPhysician pay-for-performance (P4P) programs frequently target inappropriate antibiotics. Yet little is known about P4P programs' effects on antibiotic prescribing among safety-net populations at risk for unintended harms from reducing care. We evaluated effects of P4P-motivated interventions to reduce antibiotic prescriptions for safety-net patients with acute respiratory tract infections (ARTIs).Study DesignInterrupted time series.MethodsA nonrandomized intervention (5/28/2015-2/1/2018) was conducted at 2 large academic safety-net hospitals: Los Angeles County+University of Southern California (LAC+USC) and Olive View-UCLA (OV-UCLA). In response to California's 2016 P4P program to reduce antibiotics for acute bronchitis, 5 staggered Choosing Wisely-based interventions were launched in combination: audit and feedback, clinician education, suggested alternatives, procalcitonin, and public commitment. We also assessed 5 unintended effects: reductions in Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS)-appropriate prescribing, diagnosis shifting, substituting antibiotics with steroids, increasing antibiotics for ARTIs not penalized by the P4P program, and inappropriate withholding of antibiotics.ResultsAmong 3583 consecutive patients with ARTIs, mean antibiotic prescribing rates for ARTIs decreased from 35.9% to 22.9% (odds ratio [OR], 0.60; 95% CI, 0.39-0.93) at LAC+USC and from 48.7% to 27.3% (OR, 0.81; 95% CI, 0.70-0.93) at OV-UCLA after the intervention. HEDIS-inappropriate prescribing rates decreased from 28.9% to 19.7% (OR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.39-1.21) at LAC+USC and from 40.9% to 12.5% (OR, 0.72; 95% CI, 0.59-0.88) at OV-UCLA. There was no evidence of unintended consequences.ConclusionsThese real-world multicomponent interventions responding to P4P incentives were associated with substantial reductions in antibiotic prescriptions for ARTIs in 2 safety-net health systems without unintended harms.

16 keywords...

hide…