On September 22, 2016 the NCQA announced the release of the 2016-2017 Health Insurance Plan Ratings, this is the second year of the NCQA’s new rating methodology. The Health Insurance Plan Ratings. which are published annually and compare the quality and services of more than 1,000 health plans across the United States. One new aspect of the 2016-2017 ratings is that WebMD will be publishing the ratings on their WebMD.com.
This year the NCQA analyzed 1,401 health plans, rating 1,012. 503 of those were private (commercial), 338 Medicare and 171 Medicaid. The easy to use system lets consumers search for health plans by state, and plan name or plan type (Private, Medicaid, Medicare). Consumers can also sort the listings by Accredited Status, Consumer Satisfaction, Prevention, and Treatment (in addition to rating).
The NCQA Ratings Focus on these elements¹….
- “Consumer Satisfaction: What patients say about their health plans in satisfaction surveys, including care, customer service and physicians.
- Prevention: How well plans provide screenings, immunizations and other preventive services.
- Treatment: How well a plan performs in treating chronic and acute conditions such as diabetes, depression and heart disease.”
You can view the 2016-17 ratings here.
Below are two key takeaways the NCQA published from the 2015-26 ratings:
- New England and Great Lakes Plans Perform Best: States with the highest percentage of plans receiving a 4.5 or 5.0 out of 5 rating include Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Maine, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Vermont and New York. Hawaii and Iowa round up the top ten.
- High and Low Performers Are Rare: Of the 1,012 rated plans, 105 (10%) received a top rating of 4.5 or 5.0 out of 5. Twenty-seven (3%) earned the ratings of 1.5 to 2.0. Most plans are in the middle, approximating a “bell curve” when all plans’ performances are plotted on a graph. http://bit.ly/1KsZIKi
- Commonalities among plans: The percent of top-rated plans are relatively the same between Private (Commercial), Medicare and Medicaid plans.
See more at: http://www.ncqa.org/newsroom/details/ncqa-releases-2016-health-insurance-plan-ratings#sthash.Ak3qQGCa.dpuf
