January 27, 2004
NCQA ANNOUNCES VENDORS RECEIVING HEDIS SOFTWARE CERTIFICATION
Certification exempts vendors’ clients from source code review during HEDIS Compliance Audit™
WASHINGTON—The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) announced today that seven leading commercial software vendors have successfully completed testing and received NCQA Certification for their Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS®)-related software. Health plans that use certified software from one of these vendors for HEDIS data collection will not be required to undergo the manual source code review component of the HEDIS Compliance Audit™ which is otherwise required to achieve NCQA Accreditation. One additional vendor is expected to complete testing by April 1.
“NCQA encourages all organizations that gather and report HEDIS data to use an NCQA-Certd HEDIS software vendor,” said Mary Braman, Director, Licensure and Certification. “Certification is an indication that a vendor has the expertise and technical skill necessary to collect, process and report HEDIS data accurately. Their systems pass the test.”
The vendors that have received NCQA HEDIS Software Certification are:
- AdvanceMed, Corporation
- Catalyst Technologies
- HEDISHelp/Qmark, Inc.
- Ingenix, Inc.
- McKesson Corporation
- TierMed Systems, LLC
- ViPS, Inc.
The vendor still in testing is:
NCQA awards certification after conducting automated testing of software that is designed to sift through health plan databases, collect relevant data and calculate HEDIS results. To validate vendors’ software, NCQA generates unique sets of sample data or “test cases” for vendors to process using their HEDIS software. NCQA then compares the vendor’s output to the expected results to determine if the software computes HEDIS results correctly. This testing process results in improved precision and comprehensiveness of source code review. A regularly updated listing of NCQA-Certified vendors is available on the Software Certification Web page.
For more information on the HEDIS Software Certification(SM) program or to request an application, call Anne Marie Smith, Software Certification Manager at (303) 651-6995.
NCQA is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to improving health care quality. NCQA accredits and certifies a wide range of health care organizations, recognizes physicians and physician groups in key clinical areas and manages the evolution of HEDIS™, the tool the nation’s health plans use to measure and report on their performance. NCQA is committed to providing health care quality informtion 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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HEDIS Software Certification(SM) is a service mark of NCQA.
HEDIS® is a registered trademark of NCQA.
HEDIS Compliance Audit™ is a registered trademark of NCQA.