How do we Define a High Quality Electrophysiologist? March 3, 2010

The current practice environment is rapidly changing for all cardiovascular practitioners, including electrophysiologists, and these changes affect reimbursement for health care delivery.

As we move away from a fee-for-service to a pay-for-performance model of reimbursement, public and private payers are motivated to improve quality while controlling costs. To this end, many payers are developing mechanisms to identify quality physicians through specialty designation programs or tiered networks. However, the criteria for assessing physicians are often “proxies” for quality due to use of administrative claims data or metrics that are not necessarily relevant to specialty practices.

To ensure that our profession defines this process of performance assessment, one project that the Heart Rhythm Society is working on, in collaboration with the American College of Cardiology, is to develop a recognition program known as the Cardiovascular Practice Recognition Program (CVRP). Read more information about the CVRP.