Does pay-for-performance work? Maybe:

The study compared use of pay-for-performance for multi-specialty physician practices in California with practices in the Pacific Northwest that didn’t use pay-for-performance over more than two years.

It found that cervical cancer screenings grew 5.3 percent for the California practices, compared to 1.7 percent among the doctors in the Pacific Northwest.

Mammography screenings rose 1.9 percent in California against a 0.2 percent climb in the Northwest, but the difference in favor of the pay-for-performance group was not statistically significant. Blood tests for diabetics rose about the same for each group.

The study also found that doctors already at the target levels received 75 percent of the bonus money.