Plan links pay to performance of providers

Hospitals in the Boulder Valley are trying to ready themselves for a new Medicare performance plan that starts in July.

Some 3,100 hospitals across the country – including at least three locally – will be held accountable for new performance measures under the plan. The plan’s “carrot” will be more money for hospitals that perform well, and its “stick” will be penalties for hospitals that perform poorly.

Medicare will start scoring hospitals in July, but the rewards and penalties aren’t slated to start until October 2012.

Chief executive John Sackett believes Avista Adventist Hospital in Louisville could get as much as $30,000…