BlueChoice HealthPlan Earns Highest National Accreditation for Sixth Straight Time
July 5, 2009
COLUMBIA, SC – July 2, 2009 – The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) has awarded BlueChoice® HealthPlan of South Carolina an “Excellent” Accreditation. This is the sixth consecutive time that the health plan has achieved this highest distinction.
“Excellent” is the highest level accreditation status, meaning that the health plan meets or exceeds the NCQA’s rigorous requirements for consumer protection and quality improvement.
“Earning Excellent Accreditation reflects a health plan’s ability to work with its members’ physicians to improve the quality of clinical care. It shows that the plan is building the kinds of partnerships that are critical to delivering great care and great service,” said NCQA President Margaret E. O’Kane.
“NCQA’s mission is to provide information that enables purchasers and consumers of managed healthcare to distinguish among plans based on quality, allowing them to make more informed healthcare purchasing decisions,” said BlueChoice HealthPlan President Mary Mazzola Spivey. “To have the quality and value of our services validated at the highest level for the sixth straight time by an independent review is phenomenal. BlueChoice HealthPlan takes great pride in this terrific accomplishment and I credit all of our employees for their continuous focus on quality for our members.”
NCQA is an independent, not-for-profit organization dedicated to assessing and reporting on the quality of health plans, managed behavioral health organizations, preferred provider organizations, physician organizations and physicians, credentials verification organizations, disease management programs and other health-related programs.
The accreditation process involves NCQA sending a team of trained health care experts, including physicians, to a rigorous on-site survey of the health plan. NCQA uses information from health plan records, consumer surveys, interviews with plan staff and performance on selected HEDIS (performance) measures. The standards are purposefully set high to encourage health plans to continuously enhance their quality and are intended to help organizations achieve the highest level of performance possible, reduce patient risk for untoward outcomes, and create an environment of continuous improvement.
BlueChoice HealthPlan’s voluntary participation in the NCQA accreditation process reflects the company’s commitment to the transformation and improvement of the health care system.
Central to BlueChoice HealthPlan’s commitment are its Great Expectations®† for health programs in asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, maternity, diabetes, back care, children’s health, depression, heart disease, heart failure, men’s health, women’s health, migraine, weight loss, smoking cessation and health and active kids. These programs are overseen by medical professionals at BlueChoice HealthPlan and serve as support for care plans developed by BlueChoice HealthPlan members’ doctors. BlueChoice HealthPlan has more than 150,000 people in South Carolina enrolled in a Great Expectations program.
Headquartered in Columbia, S.C., BlueChoice HealthPlan of South Carolina (www.BlueChoiceSC.com) is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. BlueChoice HealthPlan offers four categories of group health plans, as well as individual plans for children and young adults, and a South Carolina Medicaid product.
