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NBCH 2006 eValue8(TM) Results Offer Nationwide Analysis of How Health Plans Are Helping Consumers Manage Their Health

Posted on: Tuesday, 18 July 2006, 09:00 CDT

CHICAGO, July 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Health plans are making strides in providing a greater variety of information to members to assist them in making informed choices about their health care, according to the latest eValue8(TM) data from the National Business Coalition on Health (NBCH), a non-profit organization of employer-based health coalitions. Many plans are providing tools that assist consumers in choosing doctors and hospitals, maintaining their health, and understanding their personal benefits and risks when faced with illness.

The results were announced today at the annual eValue8 User's Group Meeting in Chicago. NBCH collected data from 250 health plans for the latest report, eValue8 Health Care 2006, and member coalitions validated the data from 93 of these plans (70 HMOs and 23 PPOs).

Developed by NBCH, eValue8 is the leading evidence based Request for Information (RFI) tool available to health care purchasers today and is widely used by business health coalitions, their purchaser members and employers to assess and manage the quality of their health care plans. Ensuring Solutions, a project of The George Washington University Medical Center, analyzed the data.

"We were pleased to find so many health plans working to provide more robust information to health care consumers regarding the quality and efficiency of the care they receive," said NBCH President and CEO Andrew Webber. "What's more, informed consumers are better health care purchasers. Armed with information, consumers can make better choices about how and where they seek health care and support. We look forward to more health plans improving next year."

The 2006 eValue8 results show that most health plans are meeting employer expectations in the area of consumer engagement. In doing so, plans have progressed by providing employees with the information they need to manage their own health, offering tools that make collecting information about their provider easy and actionable, and helping them choose and manage their pharmaceuticals to assure they are getting the best drug for their condition at the best price. In fact, Priority Health in Michigan, the RFI's benchmark HMO plan, meets 85 percent of employers' expectations for consumer engagement. On the PPO side, Patient Choice Healthcare Inc. in Minnesota meets 87 percent of employers' expectations for consumer engagement. Nearly two-thirds of health plans reporting meet at least 50 percent of employers' expectations in this same area.

Cost effective health care choices

Forty percent of health plans reported making cost of health services information available to plan members. While providing financial information of this sort is in its infancy, it is of growing importance as consumers are given incentives to shop for the most cost effective health care choices.

Progress is being made in practitioner-specific cost information with seven percent of health plans making this type of information available online to consumers and three percent of plans are putting practitioner longitudinal efficiency information online for consumers. "Longitudinal efficiency" is the cost effective use of resources over the period of illness.

Personal health records

Among the more significant emerging tools health plans are using to help members stay healthy and become engaged consumers, are personal health records (PHRs) for members. PHRs are a collection of health information about individual patients. While PHRs have been around for quite some time, more recent versions are less onerous for the consumer than the ones used in the past. The new versions automatically upload and integrate important health information including family and personal medical history, prescription and over the counter medicines, and lab test results, among other data. Findings of the health plans that reported having PHRs in the 2006 eValue8 report include: 45 percent let members collect and organize personalized member-specific information in actionable ways; 26 percent had a drug checker automatically check for drug contradictions; and 34 percent offer targeted messages to the member based on a personal profile.

Community report cards

Not only are health plans sharing information with their members, they're also working together to produce community report cards. For example, 36 percent of health plans are pooling data with at least one other health plan to measure and report practitioner performance information to the public.

Financial rewards

Health plans also are using the new data to evaluate and reward outstanding health care providers. eValue8 captures the extent to which health plans align financial rewards with clinical performance and 28 percent of health plans reported giving periodic financial rewards.

Another form of physician reward is expressed through plan designs that steer patients to better performing physicians. This plan design driven "tiered network strategy" is becoming more common among plans and employers seeking to differentiate better performing doctors and hospitals from others. Among health plans that responded to the eValue8 RFI, 21 percent offer tiered networks of primary care physicians. Also, 21 percent of health plans were using tiered networks of specialists and 23 percent of health plans reported the inclusion of medical groups or individual practice associations in tiered networks.

About eValue8 and the National Business Coalition on Health

The eValue8(TM) common Request for Information (RFI) tool is a product of the National Business Coalition on Health (NBCH), a national, non-profit, membership organization of nearly 70 employer-based health care coalitions, representing more than 10,000 employers across the United States. Through the support of NBCH member coalitions, eValue8 is maintained and modified to reflect the needs of employer health care purchasers. Content for the survey is coordinated using input from employers, coalitions and health plans and incorporates guidance from leading health care quality experts. Approximately 250 health plans respond to the annual request for information. Many of these plans respond through Watson Wyatt Worldwide, a leading human capital consulting firm, and strategic partner of NBCH. Widespread adoption of eValue8 has been the catalyst for improved health plan performance, efficiency and innovation nationwide.

In developing, identifying and disseminating best practices in value-based purchasing strategies, NBCH seeks to accelerate the nation's progress toward safe, efficient, high quality health care. For more information, call 202-775-9300 or visit http://www.nbch.org/ or http://www.evalue8.org/ .

eValue8 is a trademark of the National Business Coalition on Health in Washington, D.C.

EDITOR'S NOTE: A copy of the eValue8 Health Care 2006 report is available upon request.

National Business Coalition on Health

CONTACT: Cary Conway for National Business Coalition on Health,cary@conwaycommunication.com, +1-972-731-9242

Web site: http://www.nbch.org/http://www.evalue8.org/

Source: PRNewswire

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