UnitedHealthcare's Latino Health Initiative Recognized By National Committee for Quality Assurance for Innovative Efforts to Reduce Health Care Disparities for Hispanics
Posted on: Monday, 15 September 2008, 09:00 CDT
UnitedHealthcare, a UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) company, received the prestigious "Recognizing Innovation in Multicultural Health Care Award" by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) for efforts to reach across language barriers and provide Hispanics with services that meet their unique health care needs.
NCQA recognized UnitedHealthcare's "Enhanced Bilingual Service and Member Access Initiative," an in-language customer-service program tailored to better serve its Spanish-speaking customers and enhance their interaction with the health plan. Central to the program was the creation of a certified team of bilingual (Spanish/English) customer care professionals trained to assist Spanish-speaking health plan participants throughout the customer-service experience - from enrollment assistance and benefit information to helping them choose a Spanish-speaking doctor and sending bilingual health education materials via mail.
According to Russell Bennett, UnitedHealthcare's vice president of Latino Health Solutions, the Enhanced Bilingual Service and Member Access Initiative stems from the company's commitment to ensure its non-English-speaking and bilingual customers, many of whom prefer to receive health care information in their native languages, have access to quality health care services that are culturally and linguistically relevant.
"Through the Enhanced Bilingual Service and Member Access Initiative, we developed a trusted, in-language 'voice of the company' that helps our Spanish-speaking customers better understand their health plan benefits and become more active in managing their health," said Bennett. "Data published by the Yankelovich Hispanic Monitor indicate that the majority of Latinos prefer to receive health care information in Spanish. These and other data reinforce the need for health plans to better engage multicultural and ethnic communities to improve health outcomes and enhance their quality of life.
"However, the solution is not a mere translation of English-language materials - it's about embracing Hispanic linguistic and cultural preferences to ensure that our Spanish-speaking customers have a positive experience while interacting with their health plan, and that linguistically and culturally relevant information touches each facet of our customers' health plan experience," Bennett added.
UnitedHealthcare data indicate the success of its effort to reduce customer-service disparities among its Spanish-speaking customers compared with its English-speaking population. Customer-care access - via dedicated Spanish-language customer-care lines, 1-800-730-7270 (for PacifiCare products) and 1-800-940-1508 (for UnitedHealthcare products) - increased more than 60 percent from 2007 to 2008.
In addition, Spanish-speaking customer satisfaction grew from 65 percent when supported through interpreter services to over 90 percent when serviced in-language by certified care professionals. Internal quality assurance audits of Spanish-language calls, based on customer-satisfaction results, call-reason tracking, and volume and call-performance trends, indicate an "outstanding" quality score averaging nearly 98 percent.
"UnitedHealthcare's innovative effort to improve the lives of Hispanics is a model for health plans across the country," said Margaret E. O'Kane, president of NCQA. "The gaps in care that persist for minorities and for non-English-speakers result in serious consequences: unnecessary disability and premature death for thousands."
According to the landmark 2002 Institute of Medicine study, "Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care," minorities in the U.S. tend to get lower-quality health care than Caucasians, even when such factors as medical conditions, insurance and economic status are equivalent.
UnitedHealthcare will be recognized at a ceremony Sept. 18 in San Francisco. The award, sponsored by The California Endowment with support from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and The Office of Minority Health, is part of NCQA's efforts to improve the quality of health care in the U.S. through development of a truly multicultural health care system.
This is UnitedHealthcare's third NCQA Recognizing Innovation in Multicultural Health Care Award. The company received an additional award this year for its In-Language Member and Public Outreach in New York's Asian Community Initiative (see accompanying news release, "UnitedHealthcare's Asian Community Initiative recognized by National Committee for Quality Assurance for helping reduce health care disparities for Chinese Americans"). Last year, UnitedHealthcare was recognized for its interactive Asian-language provider directories.
For more information about NCQA, as well as upcoming conferences on multicultural health care, visit www.ncqa.org. More information about Latino Health Solutions, including additional bilingual resources such as wellness tools and health-related articles, are available at UnitedHealthcare's bilingual (English/Spanish) Web site, www.uhclatino.com.
About NCQA
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 recognizes physicians in key clinical areas. NCQA's Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) is the most widely used performance measurement tool in health care. 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. For more information, visit www.ncqa.org.
About the California Endowment
The California Endowment, a private, statewide health foundation, was established in 1996 to expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities, and to promote fundamental improvements in the health status of all Californians. For more information, visit www.calendow.org.
About UnitedHealthcare
UnitedHealthcare (www.unitedhealthcare.com) provides a full spectrum of consumer-oriented health benefit plans and services to individuals, public sector employers and businesses of all sizes, including more than half of the Fortune 100 companies. The company organizes access to quality, affordable health care services on behalf of more than 25 million individual consumers, contracting directly with more than 560,000 physicians and care professionals and 4,800 hospitals to offer them broad, convenient access to services nationwide. UnitedHealthcare is one of the businesses of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), a diversified Fortune 50 health and well-being company.
Source: Business Wire
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