03/12/2010 – Cutting Costs by introducing UnitedHealth Premium® Designated Physicians
Cutting Costs by introducing UnitedHealth Premium® Designated Physicians
Not all health care is equal, and that can affect the care you receive. That's why it's important to choose carefully.
To help you make an informed choice, UnitedHealthcare developed the UnitedHealth Premium® designation program, which recognizes physicians and facilities who meet or exceed guidelines for quality and cost efficient care. The program uses national industry, evidence-based and medical specialty society standards to evaluate physicians across 20 specialties. Physicians who meet quality and cost efficiency standards receive two stars, and physicians who meet quality standards receive one star.
All you have to do is look for the stars to find a physician that is right for you. For more information on the features of the UnitedHealth Premium program, visit MyChoiceNotChance.com.
Family, General Medicine and Other Physicians
Orthopaedic and Neurology Physicians
Heart Physicians and Facilities
Diabetes Physicians
Using UnitedHealth Premium Designations
The UnitedHealth Premium® designation program is intended as a resource for informational purposes only.
Display of Designations
Designations are displayed in UnitedHealthcare on-line physician directories at myuhc.com. You should always consult myuhc.com for the most current information. The Premium designation program may not be available in certain geographic regions. Effective April 1, 2009, the designation status of all UnitedHealthcare network doctors was updated. You can search for a UnitedHealth Premium designated physician or specialty center through myuhc's physician or facility search tool.
Premium Designations are a Guide
Premium designations are a guide to choosing a physician and may be used as one of many factors you consider when choosing the physicians from whom you receive care. If you already have a physician, you may also wish to confer with him or her for advice on selecting other physicians. You may also wish to discuss a physician's designation with him or her, prior to selecting the physician. Physician evaluations have a risk of error and should not be the sole basis for selecting a physician. For example, these ratings, which are based on aggregated claims data, do not guarantee that you will receive a particular level of care from a physician that has achieved a quality designation or, conversely, that a physician who is not ranked will provide poor quality care.
How We Evaluate the Quality and Cost Efficiency of Physicians
The Premium designation program for physicians uses criteria and measures from nationally recognized organizations, such as the National Quality Forum, Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance and the National Committee for Quality Assurance, that identify evidence-based and/or consensus-based standards for treating medical conditions. Practically speaking, evidence based guidelines are those standards, based on science, which define how a patient should be treated to receive optimal care for his or her condition. Consensus-based guidelines are those standards agreed to by leading physician organizations when science-based guidelines do not exist and which define optimal patient treatment. We measure a physician's performance against these optimal treatment standards.
Non-surgical specialists: As part of the evaluation, a non-surgical specialist (non-proceduralist) must be board certified in their primary specialty and have a minimum of 30 clinical observations across at least five UnitedHealthcare members for the conditions that are measured under the program. For the quality designation, a physician must comply with the applicable standards 75% of the time.
Non-surgical specialists who do not have a minimum of 30 clinical observations across at least five UnitedHealthcare members are displayed as having "insufficient information with UnitedHealthcare."
Surgical specialists: As part of the evaluation, a surgical specialist (proceduralist) must be board certified in their primary specialty and have at least five UnitedHealthcare members within the time period evaluated. We apply a 95% confidence interval on the quality designation for surgical specialists.
Designation is a two stage process. The first stage is an evaluation of quality based on analysis of 12-36 months of collected paid claims and/or practice data for UnitedHealthcare members compared to specialty specific national quality standards. Physicians whose paid claims data demonstrates that they meet or exceed quality criteria, as measured against national quality standards, are designated by a quality star ().
Only physicians who receive a Premium designation for quality of care are further evaluated for the cost efficiency of the care that they provide. Cost efficiency is based on factors such as the use and price of diagnostic testing, prescribed medications, procedures and follow-up care in comparison to other physicians in the same specialty in the same geographic area. In order to make an "apples to apples" comparison in the cost efficiency for doctors, we make an adjustment to account for the types of patients, severity of illness and patients' conditions that the particular doctor treats.
Patients are grouped based on similar characteristics using complete "episodes of care" which includes physician care, inpatient and outpatient hospital services, laboratory testing, x-rays, drug and other available paid claims associated with each patient for treatment of a condition.
A cost efficiency score is calculated by comparing a doctor's actual episode costs to the local market average for similar episodes treated by similar specialists. Doctors who meet the quality criteria and are more efficient in comparison to local market specialty specific averages will receive the UnitedHealth Premium cost efficiency designation, which is shown as a second star ().
A physician who has met the quality criteria and has a star denoted by his or her name, but does not have a second star indicating the adherence to the UnitedHealth Premium cost efficiency criteria, could mean that the physician either did not satisfy the cost efficiency criteria or did not have sufficient UnitedHealthcare paid claims data for the cost efficiency analysis.
As part of the development of the UnitedHealth Premium program, we solicit input and feedback from consumers, employers and physicians. We have established national and local physician advisory committees and we gain additional input from surveys and meetings with physicians, consumers and employers. Such input and feedback is incorporated into the program on an ongoing basis.
Individual and Group Evaluations
Only individual physicians that meet UnitedHealth Premium designation quality criteria for that specialty, or physicians that are part of medical groups that meet UnitedHealth Premium criteria for group practices in that specialty, may receive the Premium quality of care designation. Physicians in a particular group may be evaluated on an aggregate, not an individual, basis. Therefore, a physician in a eligible group practice who has insufficient data on his or her own may qualify for designation if his or her specialty in that group met the quality or quality and cost efficiency designation criteria.
Important Notes about the Program
The information from the Premium designation program is not an endorsement of a particular physician or health care professional's suitability for your health care needs. UnitedHealthcare does not provide health care services nor practice medicine. Physicians are solely responsible for medical judgments and treatments. The designation of a physician does not guarantee the quality of health care services you will receive from a doctor and does not guarantee the outcome of any health care services you will receive.
Likewise, the fact that a physician may not be designated by this program does not mean that the physician does not provide quality health care services. All physicians in the UnitedHealth Network have met certain minimum credentialing requirements. Regardless of whether a physician has received a designation, you have access to all physicians in the UnitedHealth Network, as further described under your benefit plan.
As with all programs that evaluate performance based on analysis of a sample, there is a risk of error. There is a risk of error in the paid claims data used in the evaluation, the calculation used in the evaluation and the way the program determined that an individual physician was responsible for the treatment of the patient's condition. It is important that you consider many factors and information from as many sources as possible when selecting a physician.
How We Determine which Physician Specialties are Included in the Premium Program
The specialties that may receive designation are Allergy, Cardiology (non-interventional), Cardiothoracic Surgery, Electrophysiology, Endocrinology, Family Medicine, Infectious Disease, Internal Medicine, Interventional Cardiology, Nephrology, Neurology, OB/GYN, Orthopedic Surgery, Pediatrics, Pulmonology, Rheumatology, Spine Surgery, Sports Medicine, and Total Joint Replacement. We evaluate specialties that have national quality standards that can be evaluated using claims data.
No Designation
Not all physicians in the UnitedHealth Network will have a Premium designation. There are several possible reasons. Physicians may: decline to display their designation; have insufficient claims data with UnitedHealthcare for evaluation; practice in a specialty that is not evaluated under the program; not have met criteria for designation; or practice in a market where the Premium program is not available.
The Premium designation status of a physician is re-evaluated on a regular basis.
Questions or Complaints?
If you have questions or a complaint about the Premium designation program, you may call Customer Care at the number found on the back of your ID card from 8:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m., EST, Monday-Friday.
The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) is an independent not-for-profit organization that uses standards, clinical performance measures and member experience to evaluate the quality of health plans. NCQA serves as an independent ratings examiner for UnitedHealthcare, reviewing how the UnitedHealth Premium designation program meets criteria required by the State of New York. The NCQA Ratings Examiner Report provides information on how health plans in New York evaluate physicians in their networks for quality and cost efficiency. You can view the report by visiting http://nyrxreport.ncqa.org/Overview.aspx. If you have a complaint about the UnitedHealth Premium designation program, in addition to registering that complaint with UnitedHealthcare, you may also register your complaint with the NCQA by writing to customersupport@ncqa.org or to NCQA Customer Support, 1100 13th Street NW, Suite 1000, Washington, DC 20005.
Additional Information on the UnitedHealth Premium Designation Program
The UnitedHealth Premium program is available in 138 markets across the United States. If you would like a complete listing of the available markets, a copy of the detailed program methodology, the measures the program uses to evaluate physicians, information on how the program considers measurement error and measure reliability and how outlier cases are handled, the number or percentage of physicians that have results in your area, information on the percentage of payments made to physicians based on performance, or would like to provide feedback on the program, please send an email to premiumcustomercare@uhc.com.
Learn More about the Methods We Use to Evaluate Quality and Cost Efficiency in the Premium Program
Non-Surgical Specialties
Quality of Care
The quality of care evaluation compares all UnitedHealthcare claims information for the doctor to see how often the doctor adhered to established medical care rules created for over 30 common conditions such as coronary artery disease, heart failure, diabetes, and asthma. Based on the analysis of UnitedHealthcare claims data, patients who have received treatment for one or more of these conditions are assigned to the primary doctor treating the condition. Physician data is then reviewed against the national evidence and consensus-based quality criteria for their assigned patients and compared to an established quality benchmark. Doctors whose paid claims data meet this quality benchmark are eligible to move to the next step- an evaluation of cost efficiency. If the physician's paid claims data does not meet the quality benchmark, they are not evaluated for cost efficiency.
Example: We review the medical claims submitted to us from each eligible doctor and identify all of his or her patients who are diagnosed with coronary artery disease. We then review each individual doctor's treatment provided to his or her patients to determine if the doctor followed the national quality criteria set up for coronary artery disease. These rules are based on guidelines as recommended by The American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association®. Examples of these rules include prescribing cholesterol lowering medication and prescribing beta-blocker medication after a heart attack. Information from medical specialty societies suggests that these treatments can improve the patient's overall physical functions, their quality of life, and can reduce their risk of another cardiac event.
Cost Efficiency
Cost Efficiency is based on factors such as the use and price of diagnostic testing, prescribed medications, procedures and follow-up care in comparison to other physicians in similar specialties in the same geographic area. In order to make an "apples to apples" comparison in the efficiency of care for doctors, we make an adjustment to account for the types and severity of patients' conditions that the particular doctor treats.
Patients are grouped based on similar characteristics using complete "episodes of care" which includes physician care, inpatient and outpatient hospital services, laboratory testing, x-rays, drug and other claims associated with each patient for treatment of a condition. To establish a market average for a specific condition, there needs to be a minimum of 50 episodes (cases) in that market.
A physician will be assigned responsibility for an episode's cost when the physician generated the largest share of total episode costs and that share is at least 30% of the total episode cost. While UnitedHealthcare values and promotes routine examinations and vaccines for children and adults, the costs of these are not included in episode of care costs evaluated by the UnitedHealth Premium program. In addition, there are separate comparative benchmarks for episodes with and without prescription claims data.
Doctors who are more efficient in comparison to local market averages will receive the UnitedHealth Premium cost efficiency designation, which is shown as a second star ().
A physician who has met the quality criteria and has a star denoted by their name, but does not have a second star indicating the adherence to the UnitedHealth Premium cost efficiency criteria, could mean that the physician either did not satisfy the cost efficiency criteria or did not have sufficient UnitedHealthcare paid claims data for the cost efficiency analysis.
