Incentives and Rewards Tools

Use the links to tools on the left or those below to incentivise hospitals to provide high quality care and reward them for providing it.

Purchaser Guide for Value-Driven Health Care

This guide was created by members of the Partnership for Value-Driven Health Care in response to HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt's "4 Cornerstones" initiative, in which he issued a challenge to employers to implement the following: utilizing health information technology, measuring and publishing quality information, measuring and publishing price information, and creating positive incentives for high quality, efficient health care.

Leapfrog Incentives and Rewards Compendium - The Leapfrog Group, with funding from The Commonwealth Fund and additional support from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has developed a public Web-based compendium of incentive and reward programs aimed at improving health care. Click the link above for a full description of the Leapfrog Compendium.

ROI Estimator - The Leapfrog Group has released an online, open source tool to help purchasers and payers estimate the potential return on investment from implementing the Leapfrog Hospital Rewards Program™ (LHRP). The ROI Estimator is designed to help purchasers and payers estimate the costs and benefits—in terms of both clinical improvements and financial savings—of implementing the LHRP, an innovative pay for performance program that rewards hospitals for providing high quality, high value care in five clinical areas.

Basic Incentives and Rewards for Frogs - The objective of incentives and rewards directed to either hospitals or consumers (or both) is to increase the adoption of Leapfrog’s recommended patient safety practices or “Leaps” and/or to increase the number of “Leap-appropriate” admissions. The combination of these two effects will decrease the total number of lives that are lost each year due to preventable medical mistakes in hospitals. Use this toolkit and other Leapfrog resources to start an incentives and rewards program for the hospitals to which you send your covered lives.

Leapfrog Group Actuarial Model – Based on a few key inputs regarding hospital and purchaser characteristics, the Towers Perrin Actuarial Model for Understanding the Cost/Benefit of Leapfrog Adoption workbook can be used to determine the estimated gap ("shortfall" or "net savings") between the expected cost of Leap-adoption at any given hospital and the benefits/savings that the hospital and purchaser community can derive from implementation. Click the link above to view the entire actuarial model and determine your organization’s potential cost savings.

Opportunity Rate Toolkit – The Leapfrog Opportunity Rate Toolkit includes instructions, reference materials, worksheet templates, and other documents that Leapfrog purchaser members and health plans will find useful in computing and reporting the Opportunity Rate in their patient population for the Leapfrog quality and safety standards. The Opportunity Rate - getting patients to go to hospitals that meet the Leapfrog quality and safety standards is the process used by Leapfrog employer/purchaser members to reduce avoidable hospital deaths. Measuring that process underlies the method The Leapfrog Group uses to measure its success.  The Leapfrog Group has focused on this actionable goal and will measure progress against it using an opportunity rate metric, with "opportunity" generally defined as the remaining number of avoidable patient deaths due to preventable errors based on admissions to hospitals not meeting the Leapfrog standard(s) appropriate to patients’ condition.

Health Plan Contract Language – This template contract lays out commitments to be made by the plan to support and advance group health plan initiatives to develop a health care market in which (a) providers improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the services they provide using NCQA/Leapfrog/Bridges to Excellence performance measures, and (b) consumers are engaged in managing their health, and selecting their providers, but are sensitive to the cost and quality of services provided. Click the link above to gain access to the full document based on work conducted by the GE Group Health team.

eValue8 (Standardized Health Plan Request for Information Tool) – The National Business Coalition on Health (NBCH) eValue8 tool includes a common set of core health plan performance expectations and Request For Information questions, including sections that query plans about their efforts to support Leapfrog’s goals. Click the link above to learn more about NBCH and the eValue8 RFI.

Ensuring Quality Health Plans: A Purchaser's Toolkit for Using Incentives - While there are many factors that adversely affect health care, one of the most troubling is the variation in health plan performance from region to region. The effects of this disparity can have dire consequences. The current marketplace does not typically reward high performing health plans with more enrollees or higher reimbursement. It is critical for purchasers to guarantee health plan value and quality through a variety of motivational incentives. Click on the link above to learn more and use this tool along with other Leapfrog resources to implement a successful incentives and rewards program with health plans and purchasers.

Quality Incentive Models - provider quality incentives are an important component of value-based purchasing. They create a business case for providers to invest their time and effort in health care quality improvement. Over time, the result should be improved delivery of health services as well as enhanced patient health and satisfaction with care. Click the link above and use the model along with other Leapfrog resources to change the way you purchase healthcare now and in the future.

Public Recognition – Use the tools below to garner more public exposure related to the efforts your organization is making toward offering incentives and rewards as well as templates to recognize hospitals and health plans. Click the links below to view and use the various tools. Combine them with other Leapfrog resources to provide deserving recognition.

Incentives & Rewards Communications Primer - The Leapfrog Group has commissioned leading experts in communicating quality-related information to offer their knowledge and advice based on research and experience to help ensure the success of your incentive and reward program. This communications primer is the first practical toolkit of its kind to help quality improvement leaders effectively communicate about pay for performance and its link to better health care quality to three critical audiences: consumers, physicians, and the media. 

Leapfrog's Business Case Primer  - The decision by health plans, employer coalitions, or individual employers to implement an incentive and/or reward program should be based on a systematic evaluation of benefits and costs. This primer lays out all the factors one must take into consideration when making that evaluation.