Alternative Quality Contract

We believe that doctors and hospitals should be rewarded for delivering high-quality patient care and for helping to keep our members healthy.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts has developed an innovative way to pay for care that focuses on promoting quality and rewards positive health outcomes. Our Alternative Quality Contract has become a model for state and national policymakers.

Alternative Quality Contract Results
According to Harvard Medical School researchers, the Alternative Quality Contract is improving the quality of patient care while simultaneously slowing the growth in health care spending.

Read a summary of Harvard's Alternative Quality Contract study

Download our Alternative Quality Contract White Paper

Read what the media are saying about our Alternative Quality Contract:

• LA Times Editorial
• LA Times
• Boston Globe

Who's participating in the Alternative Quality Contract?

• Accountable Care Associates, LLC (formerly Hampden County Physician Associates)
• Atrius Health
• Beth Israel Deaconess Physician Organization
• Boston Medical Center
• Children's Hospital Boston, Children's Physician Organization and the Pediatric Physician Organization at Children's
• Cooley Dickinson Hospital and Cooley Dickinson Physician Hospital Organization
• Lahey Clinic
• Lowell General Physician Hospital Organization and Lowell General Hospital
• Mount Auburn Cambridge Independent Practice Association and Mount Auburn Hospital
• New England Quality Care Alliance and Tufts Medical Center
• Northeast Health Systems Physician Hospital Organization and Beverly and Addison Gilbert Hospitals
• Partners HealthCare
• Signature Healthcare Corporation and Brockton Hospital
• South Shore Physician Hospital Organization and South Shore Hospital
• Steward Health Care (formerly Caritas Christi) and St. Elizabeth's, St. Anne's, Holy Family, Norwood, Carney, and Good Samaritan Hospitals
• UMass Memorial Health Care

You can also learn more about our Alternative Quality Contract results in these videos.

Children's Hospital Boston and its two physician groups, Children's Physicians' Organization and the Pediatric Physician Organization at Children's (PPOC), are the latest provider groups to join the AQC. The agreement with Children's and their physician groups is especially important since they are the first pediatric-only hospital and physician groups to sign the contract. This agreement provides further evidence that this innovative payment model can work for a variety of different types of hospitals and physicians, no matter what their size or specialty.

In this video, representatives from both Children's Hospital and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts talk more about the significance of this agreement.

In the videos below, representatives of Atrius Health, Accountable Care Associates in Hampden County, Massachusetts, and Lowell General Physician Hospital Organization talk about their experiences with the Alternative Quality Contract (AQC). They agree the AQC is helping them provide higher quality and more affordable care.

To support the efforts of doctors and hospitals that have signed the AQC, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts is collaborating with our AQC providers in new ways. One way is a seven-month seminar series, which we sponsor, to help health care leaders further develop the skills needed to better manage their organizations and lead the change necessary to thrive under this new contract.

In this video, Dana Safran, Senior Vice President for Performance Measurement and Improvement at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, talks about how doctors and hospitals are improving the quality of patient care under the AQC.