NCQA ONLINE TOOL DEMONSTRATES HOW BETTER HEALTH
CARE COSTS LESS

Updated Quality Dividend Calculator quantifies health care value for employers, purchasers

WASHINGTON – An updated version of the Quality Dividend Calculator (QDC) from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) quantifies how high-quality health plans can result in lower health care costs and improved worker productivity. The calculator estimates the return on investment a company receives by providing employees high-quality health care using data about clinical performance, disease prevalence, employee wages and other information.

The QDC allows employers to create customized estimates of potential savings using company information. The tool uses NCQA Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS®) data from NCQA’s Quality Compass tool to estimate the number of sick days and lost productivity resulting from illness. With the QDC Compass Edition, Employers can determine which local plans provide the best value by providing summary data showing how effectively plans treat prevalent, high-cost illnesses such as diabetes, asthma and cardiac issues. 

“Although it’s counterintuitive, better health care is often less expensive and the QDC shows makes the business case for quality in terms of employee productivity and costs,” said NCQA President Margaret E. O’Kane. “Choosing a high-quality plan that provides value is a win-win situation for all employers.”

Cost projections generated by the QDC are based on plans’ HEDIS scores. HEDIS is a set of standardized performance measures used by consumers, health plans, employers and policymakers to objectively assess physicians and health plan performance. Access to HEDIS scores of multiple plans allows users to make “apples-to-apples” comparisons, or use pre-loaded data to compare an “average” health plan to a high-performing health plan. 

The QDC Compass Edition, preloaded with HEDIS results for specific plan to plan comparisons, is available for purchase by contacting NCQA Customer Support at (888) 275-7585.  A free version of the QDC is available at www.ncqacalculator.com and offers more general comparisons of average plan performance. Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. provided support for this year’s updates to the QDC.

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 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 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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HEDIS® is a registered trademark of the National Committee for Quality Assurance. All rights reserved.