An incentive approach to physician implementation of medical practice guidelines.

We propose a probabilistically based incentive payment system for guideline implementation that provides rewards for physicians who follow practice guidelines and additional remuneration for physician leaders who engage in information sharing. All payments are based on observed outcomes of patient treatment. A fixed base payment forms the core of the system with probabilistic offsets calculated from the chance that a 'good' outcome occurs without optimal treatment or information. The system pays different physician types for different task sets.