The American Hospital Association sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services urging it to align quality measures for health plans participating in insurance exchanges with quality measures in existing federal healthcare programs, according to an AHA News Now report.
AHA responded to CMS' request for information on quality requirements for health plans in exchanges. In addition to the recommendation to align quality measures, AHA made three other main recommendations:
• CMS should implement strategies to encourage alignment and reduce the burden of measurement and reporting for insurance exchanges.
• CMS should ensure there are clear, transparent administrative processes for hospitals to submit data to health plans, compare performance against benchmarks and verify the accuracy of data used in public reporting.
• In developing a rating system for health plans, CMS should balance measures that assess hospital and provider quality with measures that assess health plan quality, including the ability to link patients to services.
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AHA responded to CMS' request for information on quality requirements for health plans in exchanges. In addition to the recommendation to align quality measures, AHA made three other main recommendations:
• CMS should implement strategies to encourage alignment and reduce the burden of measurement and reporting for insurance exchanges.
• CMS should ensure there are clear, transparent administrative processes for hospitals to submit data to health plans, compare performance against benchmarks and verify the accuracy of data used in public reporting.
• In developing a rating system for health plans, CMS should balance measures that assess hospital and provider quality with measures that assess health plan quality, including the ability to link patients to services.
More Articles on Health Insurance Exchanges:
CMS Requests Information on Health Plan Quality for Insurance ExchangesHealth Insurers, State Entities Face Tight Timeline to Coordinate Exchanges
AHA: Essential Health Benefit Rules Too Flexible to Insure All