Engaging primary care physicians in quality improvement: lessons from a payer-provider partnership

A health insurer in Michigan, through its Physician Group Incentive Program, engaged providers across the state in a collection of financially incentivized initiatives to transform primary care and improve quality. We investigated physicians' and other program stakeholders' perceptions of the program through semistructured interviews with more than 80 individuals. We found that activities across five areas contributed to successful provider engagement: (1) developing a vision of improving primary care, (2) deliberately fostering practice-practice partnerships, (3) using existing infrastructure, (4) leveraging resources and market share, and (5) managing program trade-offs. Our research highlights effective strategies for engaging primary care physicians in program design and implementation processes and creating learning communities to support quality improvement and practice change.