Excerpt: "The potential of shared capitalism to improve individual and organizational performance through financial incentives depends on employees knowing about and participating in compensation plans that link rewards to performance. This paper therefore analyzes a survey of employees from multiple companies to assess the extent to which employees are ignorant about company, group, and individual-based incentive pay plans and ESOPs. The findings reveal significant amounts of employee ignorance in both under- and overstating the extent to which such plans apply to them individually." (authored by National Bureau of Economic Research; paid subscription or individual purchase required to retrieve fulltext)

Excerpt: "We find that greater involvement in the programs is generally linked to greater participation in decisions, higher quality supervision and treatment of employees, more training, higher pay and benefits, greater job security, and higher job satisfaction. We also find positive interactions of shared capitalism with high-performance policies in predicting participation in decisions and overall job satisfaction, and negative interactions of shared capitalism with close supervision in affecting almost all of the outcomes. Overall the results support the idea that workers can gain by sharing, but whether this happens is contingent on other workplace policies." (authored by National Bureau of Economic Research; paid subscription or individual purchase required to retrieve fulltext)

More doctor data on the Web Crain's Detroit Business, MI - 1 hour ago Last November, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and four large health insurance companies, including Aetna Inc., reached a settlement over the plans' ... • Your doctor's office soon may become your 'medical home' -- for ... The Grand Rapids Press - MLive.com all 3 news articles

The list of hospital treatments that Medicare won’t pay for is growing, but not by as much as the feds initially suggested it might. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said last year it would stop paying to treat certain complications it said were preventable with good care. (We described the initial list in this [...]

Lawmakers, state officials and experts on Tuesday at a House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee discussed the roles of the federal government and states in efforts to expand access to health insurance, CQ HealthBeat reports.

Alan Weil, executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy, said, "While state efforts make a real contribution, federal leadership is needed to make substantial, sustained progress in health reform efforts." Weil added, "States cannot pursue comprehensive health reform without substantial and reliable financial participation by the federal government." He said that "approaches that combine the resources, stability and uniformity of federal involvement with the dynamism, local involvement and creativity of states can foster excellent results," adding that the "federal government can bring its clout as the largest purchaser, stable funding that can weather economic ups and downs and standards that can assure all Americans they will have meaningful access to needed health care services."

Subcommittee ranking member Dave Camp (R-Mich.) said, "It is my opinion that states are the most appropriately situated to design health care plans that meet the needs of its citizens. Congress should be looking at what works, and what does not work, in the states."

Need To Improve Quality
Witnesses said that health care reform efforts must seek to improve quality and reduce costs, as well as expand access to health insurance. "States long ago learned that they cannot afford major coverage expansions if they do not

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This company, Ingenix, is wholly owned by United Healthcare, the biggest healthcare insurer in the country. The Attorney General is fighting to have an independent body determine what should be the “usual and customary charge”. ...

Excerpt: "IRS Reg. §1.162-27(e)(3)(i) provides that an 'outside director' must not have been an officer of the publicly held corporation, among other requirements. Under the facts and circumstances presented, the interim CEO acted with the full authority of an officer and was, therefore, barred from participating on the compensation committee as an outside director, the IRS concluded." (authored by Wolters Kluwer)

The rolling national debate over how to rank and rate doctors pulled into Massachusetts this week, as the state medical society filed a lawsuit to block or change a ranking program it says harms doctors and patients. The program, used by the agency that oversees health insurance for state and local employees, ranks doctors in three [...]

The same government-backed incentive programs aimed at improving the care all Americans receive in hospitals may be widening the gap between poor, underserved patients and those who are insured or can afford to pay for their own care, according to a new study led by a University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine physician.

UnitedHealth's Ingenix faces mounting legal troubles FierceHealthcare, DC - 5 minutes ago Weintraub also names UHG, Oxford health Plans, Aetna , Cigna and other insurers in the suit. Meanwhile, the industry is still waiting for Cuomo to drop the ...

Excerpt: "[47] percent of private sector employees in the United States have had at least part of their compensation tied to their company's profitability or stock price. That's right. If you include stock options, deferred stock, profit sharing or cash bonuses pegged to a company's performance, nearly half of the 114 million employees of private-sector companies had some stock or profit-related pay at the end of 2006." (authored by The New York Times; free registration required)

Excerpt: "Hospitals and other facilities are implementing forms of payfor performance in a way that was nonexistent ten or even five yearsago. Such programs typically use established ratings methods andindicators to measure levels of quality (such as efficiency or patientsatisfaction), then offer incentives or compensation to entities orproviders who are rated highly based on these indicators." (authored by Milliman)

Excerpt: "More health insurers have adopted New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's doctor ranking model, thereby agreeing to fully disclose to consumers, physicians and plan sponsors the cost and quality metrics they use to rank doctors." (Workforce Management)

Specialty drug price increases prompt payers' policies Myrtle Beach Sun News, SC - 48 minutes ago Aetna Inc., the big Hartford, Conn., health insurer, is exploring a "pay-for-performance" strategy in which a drug's price would be tied to efficacy. ...

Health Insurers, Pharmacy Benefit Managers, Employers Look To Rein ... Kaiser network.org, DC - 33 minutes ago Meanwhile, Aetna is considering a pay-for-performance system for specialty drugs, under which a drug's price would be linked to efficacy. ...