NBCH Releases eValue8 Report on Health Plans' Performance Around HHS' Four Cornerstones of Value-Driven Health Care

Findings reveal health plans are providing consumers with robust quality and price information on hospitals, but not doctors WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, the non-profitNational Business Coalition on Health (NBCH), released the "eValue8(TM)Cornerstone Report: Measuring the Success of America's Health Plans." Thisis the first comparison of the performance of America's health plansbenchmarked against the Four Cornerstones of Value-Driven Health Care.Released on the eve of the first anniversary of President Bush's ExecutiveOrder to promote federally-led efforts to implement more transparent andhigh-quality health care, the baseline report is publicly available and canbe accessed at: http://www.nbch.org/eValue8/news/cornerstonereport.pdf. In 2006, a consortium of U.S. business groups, along with the federalgovernment, agreed to urge the nation's public and private health carepurchasers to promote transparency and the adoption of informationtechnology by implementing Four Cornerstone actions: 1) to collect anddisseminate quality information on physicians and hospitals; 2) to collectand disseminate information on price; 3) to offer incentives to providersto improve their care and offer consumers incentives to stay healthy andmake cost-effective choices; and 4) to use and encourage physicians andhospitals to adopt and utilize health information standards and systemsthat communicate between providers. "As we work toward the goal of providing all Americans with easy-to-useinformation on health care quality and costs to make informed decisions,health plans play a critical role in providing this information toconsumers," said Mike Leavitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services(HHS). "HHS applauds NBCH's leadership in working with coalitions andemployers to report how America's health plans are performing around theFour Cornerstones of Value- Driven Health Care." NBCH's eValue8 program is the nation's leading standardized request forinformation (RFI) tool that employers and coalitions use to gather healthcare data from nearly 200 health plans and health insurers. Over 100million Americans, or one in every three Americans, are members of healthplans that respond to the eValue8 RFI. Given the critical role that healthplans play in fostering quality, NBCH member coalitions and employers askhealth plans to complete the eValue8 RFI annually. The data allowsemployers to select the best plans and work with them to raise the level ofhealth for plan members as well as the entire community. The eValue8 Cornerstone Report analyzes and compares health planresponses to 19 questions called for by HHS in the Employer Toolkit forValue-Driven Health Care (http://www.hhs.gov/valuedriven/) and now embeddedin the eValue8 common RFI. These questions determine the plans' ability tomeet purchasers' expectations on promoting transparency, care improvementand information technology. The complete 2007 eValue8 analysis of healthplan performance on the full set of seven clinical and administrative areaswill be available later this year. "The data and dialogue that result from eValue8 is invaluable toemployers in setting performance expectations of their plans and measuringand rewarding high quality health care," said Andrew Webber, president andCEO of the National Business Coalition on Health. "By providing a snapshotof eValue8 as it relates to the Four Cornerstones, we are moving forwardthe value-driven health care agenda and providing a baseline to improvehealth care quality and cost." Cornerstone Report findings NBCH has found that health plans have made progress toward the FourCornerstone goals in many respects, but there is wide variation in planperformance leaving significant room for improvement. Promoting quality and price transparency -- For quality transparency, hospital reporting is ahead of physician reporting. Consumer reporting of standard physician performance measures in areas like prevention, diabetes and cardiovascular conditions is done by only six percent of health plans. In contrast almost 30 percent of plans provide reports to consumers about hospital quality in areas like heart attacks and pneumonia. -- Information about prescription drugs is widely available with 75 percent of health plans offering their members information on the cost of their prescription drugs. Aligning incentives for high-value health care -- About 50 percent of health plans are paying providers cash incentives based on providing better health care. This is progress, but it should be noted that plans are still using an underlying payment system that pays providers for services regardless of health outcomes. In fact, almost all health plans pay extra to contend with the consequences of medical errors. -- In keeping with the trend toward value-based benefit design, health plans are beginning to provide incentives for members to choose higher performing doctors. Promoting and using health information technology (HIT) andinteroperability -- While health plans are making significant progress in making online tools like personal health records available to its members, HIT adoption and interoperability is in its infancy. -- Sixty four percent of health plans report providing online personal health records for their members (although most of these require self- entry of information rather than pre-population with plan information like tests taken and prescriptions filled). -- Forty-one percent of health plans use HIT interoperability standards for 75 percent or more of their enrollment and eligibility transactions. -- Seven percent of health plans report providing electronic medical records for physicians in their network. -- Twenty-nine percent of health plans report supporting online medical consultations that can save money and time for consumers. eValue8 promotes collaboration between plans In order for information on physicians to be statistically valid, suchreporting requires more patients than a typical plan can claim within asingle physician practice. This fact highlights the importance of healthplan collaboration on practice reporting. About one-third of the plansreport pooling information for hospital feedback and one-third report thesame for physician feedback. Also included in the report are examples of health plans implementingthe Four Cornerstones and its impact on patients who benefit from safer andmore efficient health plans. About the National Business Coalition on Health and eValue8 Celebrating 15 years of value based purchasing, NBCH is a national,non- profit, membership organization of nearly 70 employer-based healthcare coalitions, representing over 7,000 employers and 34 million employeesand their dependents across the United States. NBCH and its members arededicated to value based purchasing of health care services through thecollective action of public and private purchasers. eValue8(TM) is aproduct of the National Business Coalition on Health and is the nation'sleading evidence- based request for information (RFI) tool used bycoalitions and major employers to assess and manage the quality of theirhealth care vendors. For additional information visit http://www.nbch.org.