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NCQA Press Release> October 30, 2009
FIFTEEN VENDORS SEEK NCQA
SOFTWARE CERTIFICATIONSM FOR 2010
Certification exempts vendors’ clients from source code review during an NCQA HEDIS® Compliance AuditTM
and P4P Audit ReviewTM
WASHINGTON—The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) announced today that 15 vendors will seek certification for software related to the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS®) and Integrated Healthcare Association’s (IHA) California Pay for Performance (P4P) measurement sets. Such software programs collect relevant data from health plan databases and calculate rates for health care measures that assess the quality of service and care.
NCQA validates vendors’ software by generating test data sets. Vendors process the test sets and compare their output to the expected results to determine whether their software computes results in accordance with NCQA specifications. Vendors who achieve certification are exempt from manual source code review by NCQA Compliance Auditors during an NCQA HEDIS Compliance Audit and P4P Audit Review.
This year’s Software Certification includes one new performance measure – Immunization for Adolescents – which was added to the HEDIS 2010 measurement set.
“Certified vendors demonstrate their software can reliably gather the most correct results possible,” said Mary Braman, Director, Licensure and Certification. “Health plans contracting with a NCQA-Certified software vendor have the peace of mind knowing that their data is accurate and reliable.”
Seven of the 15 vendors are seeking partial certification. Vendors who choose this type of certification are testing the P4P measurement set in addition to the full HEDIS measurement set or are only testing a subset of the HEDIS measures.
As in previous years, Catalyst Technologies, A MedAssurant Solution and TierMed Systems, a division of D2Hawkeye, Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of Verisk Health, Inc. are serving as beta test sites in preparation for this year’s testing.
For vendor contact information and certification status updates, visit NCQA’s Web site: www.ncqa.org/hedissoftcert.aspx. For more information on the Software Certification programs or to request an application, contact NCQA Software Certification Program Director Anne Smith at (303) 651-6995 or visit www.ncqa.org/softcert.aspx.
NCQA is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to improving health care quality. NCQA accredits and certifies a wide range of health care organizations and recognizes physicians in key clinical areas. NCQA’s Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS®) is the most widely used performance measurement tool in health care. NCQA is committed to providing health care quality information through the Web, media and data licensing agreements in order to help consumers, employers and others make more informed health care choices.
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Vendors Seeking Software Certification:
Austin Provider Solutions, Inc.
Catalyst Technologies, A MedAssurant Solution
DST Health Solutions, Inc.
Healthcare Data Services, LLC
ikaSystems Corporation
Innoapp, LLC
IMI Health
ManagedCare.com
McKesson Health Solutions, LLC
MEDecision, Inc.
Med-Vantage, Inc.
Outcomes Health Information Solutions
Q Mark, Inc.
TIERMED SYSTEMS, a division of D2Hawkeye, Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of Verisk Health, Inc.
ViPS®, a General Dynamics Information Technology Company
HEDIS® is a registered trademark of NCQA.
HEDIS Compliance AuditTM and P4P Audit ReviewTM are trademarks of NCQA.
HEDIS Software CertificationSM is a service mark of NCQA. All rights reserved.
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Media Contact
Andy Reynolds
202-955-3518
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