NCQA’S QUALITY COMPASS 2008 DETAILS PERFOMANCE OF
MORE THAN 400 COMMERCIAL HEALTH PLANS
Quality, service data for more than 160 PPO plans available for the first time
WASHINGTON—Data on clinical performance and patient experience for more than 85 million Americans enrolled in over 400 commercial health plans are now available from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). NCQA’s Quality Compass, the nation’s most widely used database of health plan performance, includes information on clinical performance and member satisfaction for more than 160 individual preferred provider plans (PPO) for the first time.
While NCQA has reported data for health maintenance organizations (HMOs) since 1995, this year marks the first time that individual PPO plan data will be reported in Quality Compass. The first-time inclusion of plan-level PPO data accounts in large part for the increase in submissions in this year’s edition of the database; 410 commercial plan submissions are included, up from 251 last year.
“Two-thirds of privately insured Americans receive their coverage from PPOs. This wealth of PPO data gives us a much clearer picture of health plan performance in the United States,” said NCQA Chief Information Officer Rick Moore. “The addition of this data to Quality Compass allows decision-makers in the health plan contracting cycle to make meaningful comparisons among both HMO and PPO plans.”
Employers, health plans, pharmaceutical companies and benefit consultants use Quality Compass to directly compare a health plan’s quality and customer service scores to those of other health plans. The data also can be used to compare plan performance against national and regional benchmarks. The data forms the basis of NCQA’s State of Health Care Quality report, which compiles national averages across more than 25 measures of care. Local data is available to reporters on an embargoed basis prior to the report’s release on October 2.
Quality Compass 2008 includes 16 new measures of care and service quality, including assessments of follow-up care for children prescribed medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), as well as new measures of antibiotic utilization. Data for Medicaid plans will be added to Quality Compass in October.
Quality Compass 2008 can be ordered online through NCQA’s Web site, www.ncqa.org/qualitycompass.aspx, or by calling NCQA Customer Support at (888) 275-7585
NCQA is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to improving health care quality. NCQA is the nation’s leading developer of health care evaluation tools including health plan accreditation, physician recognition and organization certification. NCQA also is responsible for the evolution of HEDIS®, the most widely used set of health care performance measures. 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 choices. For more information, visit www.ncqa.org.
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