Physician integration revisited—An exploratory study of monetary and professional incentives in three countries

Discussions – and definitions – of “integration” in health services and systems are abundant, but little is known about the inducements that organizational leaders use to win the support of physicians within integrated systems. This paper, drawing on a qualitative exploratory survey of sources within 151 integrated care organizations in three nations (the U.S., England, and Germany), explores the mix of monetary and professional inducements these organizations employ to attract and retain physicians. The organizations we sampled do not rely exclusively, and seldom preponderantly, on selective monetary incentives, but rather employ a composite portfolio of the two types. These inducements appear with remarkable consistency at the “micro” level of organizations in our three nations, notwithstanding the marked differences in their “macro” health systemic contexts. Since public policy sets the framework for the design of inducements and individual organizations are in charge of their implementation, our findings call for closer attention to the big motivational picture, and especially to the importance of professional considerations within it, if healthcare organizations hope to deploy effectively the whole spectrum of available incentives for physician–organization integration in the future.