By Tim Bonfield
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Several large Tristate employers are joining a national effort to pay bonuses to doctors who provide high quality patient care.

General Electric, Ford Motor Co., Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and Humana are among several sponsors of the "Bridges for Excellence" program, to be launched todayin selected cities.

Nationwide, the program will focus on three areas: diabetes care, cardiovascular care and patient care management systems. Cincinnati will be a pilot center for diabetes care, along with Louisville and Boston.

Under the diabetes program, companies will pay doctors thousands of dollars in bonuses at the end of the year for each worker or covered dependent whose care improves. A participating physician would get $100 a year for each diabetic person whose blood pressure, blood sugar and lipid levels are sufficiently controlled.

Physicians who improve care also will be highlighted in provider directories given to employees and their families. Exactly when payments for doctors would begin was not disclosed Wednesday.

The diabetes care standards were developed by the American Diabetes Association and the National Committee for Quality Assurance. In Cincinnati, mailings to recruit doctors to the program will go out in about a week.

"It's our belief that this approach to physician compensation will improve the quality of care that patients receive and will, ultimately, lower overall costs of care," said Francois de Brantes, program leader for health care initiatives for GE.

The Physician Office Link, which will reward physicians who invest in information systems and care management tools will be piloted in Boston.

The third area of the program, Cardiac Care Link, will be introduced later in the year. The measures for bonuses in that area are still being crafted.

Employers expect to benefit from the quality initiative with higher productivity. For example, an employee with poorly controlled diabetes typically misses about 12 days of work per year compared to two days for a diabetic whose illness is well controlled.

Cincinnati Children's will be among the few organizations participating as both an employer and a care provider. Joining the program fits in with other quality improvement efforts already under way, executives said.

"This is not going to radically change physician behavior. It's more of an incremental change. But it establishes the concept of better pay for higher quality," said James Anderson, president and chief executive of the hospital.

Focusing on diabetes makes sense, he said, because studies already have shown that improved disease management can improve care for patients, reduce expensive treatment of complications and increase ability to carry out daily activities.

And for Cincinnati Children's, diabetes care is one of several chronic illnesses already under internal review for ways to improve care, Anderson said.

The mostly private-sector effort also won praise from public-sector health leaders.

"Rewarding physicians for improving the quality of health care they give just makes sense," said Tom Scully, administrator of the government's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

E-mail tbonfield@enquirer.com