Primary care doctors who provide better quality care to members of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield will receive larger reimbursements, said Anthem Ohio Medical Director Dr. Barry Malinowski.

Physicians who do more to make sure patients insured by Anthem receive preventative care, comply with medications and cut hospital admissions will be reimbursed more each month, Anthem said. WellPoint Inc., the parent company of Anthem, said doctors will see on average a 10 percent increase in their fee schedule payments. That represents an investment of $600 to $800 million across WellPoint.

“As a company we have committed to paying primary care physicians more money. If you can impact quality of care, you’re going to impact cost of care, too,” Malinowski said.

This will be the focus of the company over the next few years, he said.

The expectation is doctors in either the federal or company program will use the money to add services and increase accessibility of services, Malinowski said. In practices large enough, doctors are being encouraged to add dieticians, social workers or case managers to their staff. Anthem might locate case managers on site in some cases.

Those changes make patients more likely to get the other services or follow the insurance company’s recommendations, Malinowski said.

Anthem has about 800,000 members in the Cincinnati-Dayton region, making it one of the largest commercial health insurers in Ohio, the company said.

Anthem is one of the health insurers participating in the Cincinnati-Dayton region in the Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative, a test program to change how primary care physicians are paid to care for patients. Humana and UnitedHealthcare are participating as well.

The program was approved in seven markets by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. About 75 local practices will initially be paid an average of $20 per patient per month to better coordinate care. Later, those practices will share in a portion of any Medicare savings.

Next year, Anthem also plans to expand its own Patient Centered Primary Care program to selected primary care groups in other Ohio markets. The goal to enlist 1,000 doctors, Malinowski said.

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2551 or clevingston@coxohio.com.