Health Net of California Earns Quality Awards for Its Work as a Medi-Cal Provider from California Department of Health Care Services

Health Net of California, Inc. announced that it was recognized by the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) for its work on Medi-Cal Quality Initiatives with a record seven awards.

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The DHCS recognized Health Net of California's Medi-Cal Customer Service team with a Gold Quality Award for outstanding statewide service and support in 2008 for its Medi-Cal managed care plan members. This award is presented in partnership with the DHCS Office of the Ombudsman. The issues the customer service team handles 24/7, 365 days a year range from providing welcome calls to new members and handling members' requests to change their primary care physician to providing after-hours support for Health Net of California's Hospital Notification unit.

Health Net of California's facility site review team received a Most Improved Quality Award for its work in 2008 to improve compliance with the DHCS' facility site and medical record review processes for Medi-Cal managed care. Health Net of California's facility site review nurses conduct site reviews for all primary care providers new to Medi-Cal managed care and perform mandatory re-review of all sites every three years.

The DHCS also awarded Health Net of California's Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS(R)) team with a Most Improved Quality Award. This award recognizes Health Net of California's multi-disciplinary team for achieving the most improved performance in HEDIS scores in six key quality indicators for Medi-Cal Managed Care plans in Fresno County from 2006 to 2008.

Health Net of California earned a Special Acknowledgement Quality Award for outstanding contribution to quality improvement for its work on designing and developing the Medi-Cal member education materials for the Statewide Collaborative Quality Improvement Project to Reduce Avoidable Emergency Room Visits. This award was the result of a cross-functional team of Health Net associates from its Health Education, Provider Communications and Quality Improvement and Health Care Services departments.

"We are especially honored that the California Department of Health Care Services recognized us for our commitment to quality and excellence," said David Friedman, vice president of State Health Programs for Health Net, Inc. "These awards would not have been possible without the dedication and true collaborative efforts of nearly 100 associates who served on the multi-disciplinary teams working on these projects."

The DHCS cited three Health Net associates for their outstanding contributions to the emergency room project. Chris Schneider, Audrey Tabuso and Christine Keating, all writers in Health Net's Provider Communications department, each received Special Acknowledgement Quality Award for the creative development, design and execution of a brochure and poster used as a teaching tool by health care providers and members of their office staff to educate members about appropriate use of office and emergency room settings for accessing urgent care.

Health Net of California volunteered to develop the communications pieces when budget limitations prevented the DHCS from producing them.

"We have been told that educational pieces designed by our Provider Communications team have been widely adopted by the Medi-Cal provider community," said Dave Meadows, Health Net of California's vice president of California Health Programs. "We are extremely pleased that Health Net and other Medi-Cal managed care health plans have begun to notice an improvement in emergency room usage rates."

Health Net of California's Medi-Cal, Healthy Families, Healthy Kids, Access for Infants and Mothers, and Medi-Cal dental programs cover nearly 1 million individuals statewide.

About Health Net

Health Net of California, Inc., a subsidiary of Health Net, Inc. (NYSE:HNT), is one of the largest health plans in the state. Together with Health Net Life Insurance Company, it serves more than 2.2 million members statewide, and contracts with more than 56,000 physicians, 300-plus hospitals and nearly 5,000 pharmacies, giving its members greater choice and more convenient access to care. Its commercial HMO and POS, Medicare and Medicaid lines of business have received the "excellent" accreditation status from the National Committee for Quality Assurance.