Policy and Health Issues in the News Bill Increases Funding for Some Primary Care Programs, Reduces Funding for Others An omnibus spending bill for the 2008 fiscal year, signed by President Bush, includes a modest increase in funding for rural health programs and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and a slight reduction in funding for Title VII primary care training programs. Key findings include the following: (1) P4P programs show improvement in one or more quality indicators, although it is difficult to separate P4P impact from that of other quality-improvement efforts; (2) creating accurate and transparent methods to measure performance is an important challenge when designing P4P programs; and (3) although physicians support P4P, they are skeptical that payers will implement fair and effective programs.
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