Pay for performance arrangements under consideration

Another paper published by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library may have implications for dentists, along with other health practitioners. The paper address the question 'Should we expand the use of pay-for performance in health care?'

According to the Executive Summary "this paper examines the evidence on the impact of P4P schemes in health care. While the evidence is limited and yields mixed results, some experts argue that this should not spell the end for P4P. Instead. they suggest that policy-makers proceed with caution and use the existing evidence to highlight the challenges commonly associated with the use of P4P in health care. Some of the most important challenges are designing a system with:

• substantial rewards and targets that are reasonably difficult to achieve;
• minimal unintended consequences and incentives to 'game' the system; and
• incentives to both the best and worst performers to improve the quality of health care."

Presumably the Parliamentary Library has not produced this paper merely as an academic exercise, and someone in Canberra thinks this is a policy initiative that should be pursued.