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Physician quality measures are used increasingly for pay-for-performance and other clinical incentive programs. To assess how patient socioeconomic characteristics influence physician rankings, researchers reviewed records for 125,000 patients of 162 primary care physicians in a Massachusetts academic primary care network. Physicians were initially ranked in tertiles without adjustment, based on nine HEDIS (Health Effectiveness Data and Information Set) criteria, including screening for breast, cervical, and colon cancers, and risk factor reduction in diabetes and coronary artery disease.
Top-ranked physicians, compared with bottom-ranked physicians, had patients who were significantly older, more likely to have comorbidities, and more likel…