Economic grand rounds: A pay-for-performance program for behavioral health care practitioners.

This column describes a pay-for-performance program for behavioral health care practitioners. Implemented in 1996 by a large national health insurer, the program's goals are to improve the quality of care, recognize the practitioners who provide higher-quality care, demonstrate the value of behavioral health services to purchasers, and help providers align their practices with national standards. A future goal is to provide patients with data on provider quality to improve their treatment decisions. Important considerations in measure development include application of the measure to all disciplines, feasible data collection processes for providers, creation of clinically meaningful and fair measures, and selection of measures with large baseline variability.