A Quality Contract

I spoke recently with Ralph de la Torre, MD, CEO of Boston's Caritas Christi Health Care, New England's second largest hospital chain. We talked briefly about healthcare reform, but we spent more time on the problem with procedure-based reimbursement, which many argue is bankrupting us as a nation. That's why I was so interested in talking to de la Torre about his system's "alternative quality contract" with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, which rewards hospitals not just for the number of procedures it performs on a patient, but also, and most importantly, allows caregivers and the hospital to earn bonuses for meeting quality targets.