America's Health Insurance Plans' Statement On National Committee For Quality Assurance's State Of Health Care Quality Report

America's Health Insurance Plans issued the following statement about a new report issued by the National Committee for Quality Assurance:

"No segment within health care is more committed to quality and quality improvement than the community of health insurance plans, as evidenced by the fact that 979 plans covering 116 million people reported performance measures publicly and voluntarily in 2008 - both record numbers. The achievement over most of a decade of significant year on year improvement in performance demonstrates clearly that measurement and public reporting work.

"In an interview about its report being released today, the National Committee for Quality Assurance points out that after tremendous improvement over the past ten years, "the level of improvement seems to be leveling off. " This point should be a wakeup call to everyone in health care that all segments within the system should be reporting and held accountable. No one segment can do it alone. The data suggest that many measures on which little progress has been made are those for which providers and plans are jointly accountable.

"During the past decade the focus has been primarily on health plans, there has been little reporting and little call for it outside of our community, and there has been virtually no attention paid to publicly reporting on fee for service practice. Experts in the field understand that without accountability from all segments of health care, there will be limits to what can be achieved in the quality realm. This is because different parts of the system will have a different ability to influence improvement on different measures of quality, and, in many instances, the stakeholders - doctors and other health professionals, hospitals, patients, and health plans - must work together to achieve results.

"Our community stands four square behind measurement and public reporting. We will continue to play a leadership role and to work with our colleague stakeholders on the important efforts underway to support further advances in quality, including the patient centered medical home, payment reform that aligns with quality, personal health records, and other steps in building the infrastructure necessary for continued improvement in care and the patient experience."