Researchers report on a new alternative to fee-for-service payment being tried by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. Writing in Health Affairs, the authors of the study, who include Robert E. Mechanic of Brandeis University and Michael Chernew, professor at Harvard Medical School and member of The Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System, say that provider groups participating in the Alternative Quality Contract, as the new system is known, have been able to slow their health care spending growth and begun to focus more on quality improvement, reduce their use of expensive sites of care, and coordinate services for high-risk patients.
