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October 22, 2009 at 08:00 PM
Many health quality measures have stagnated this year, and results for mental health and substance abuse care remain “dreadful,” according to health quality group.
The National Committee for Quality Assurance, Washington, says the country could avoid up to 115,000 deaths per year if all plans in its database performed as well as the plans that rank in the top 10%.
The NCQA is the nonprofit group that runs the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set program. Many employers and some government health agencies now require the plans they use to report HEDIS data to the NCQA.
The NCQA has based its latest quality report on HEDIS data from 979 health plans.
The plans that provided data for the current report cover a total of 116 million U.S. residents, up 9% from 106 million in 2008, the NCQA says.
The commercial plans turned in better results for 43% of the 51 “trendable measures” assessed, and the differences between the health maintenance organizations and the preferred provider organization plans that are participating has narrowed, the NCQA says.
Medicaid plans showed improvement on 36% of their 50 trendable measures, and Medicare plans showed improvement on just 14% of their 36 trendable measures.
