The quality of care provided by a managed care network directly affects the health of employees and their families, work force productivity, and an employer's direct and indirect health care costs. This report provides comparisons of the quality and value offered by Pennsylvania HMOs. Here's how to use this report to explore HMO utilization, prevention measures, clinical outcomes and member satisfaction.
Keeping patients healthy is a goal of all HMOs. Successful measures in this category include high rates of members receiving screening procedures, appropriate medication usage and disease monitoring.
One goal of an HMO network, and especially primary care, is to decrease preventable or avoidable hospitalizations. Reporting hospitalization rates for health problems that should not require hospitalization serves as one way to analyze the effectiveness of primary care and HMOs. The statewide average scores for all HMOs provide a point of comparison for each HMO. For these measures, a higher hospitalization rate is a poorer outcome of care and suggests a less effective HMO network of health providers.
HMO members with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, and diabetes are at higher risk for hospitalization if appropriate and on-going treatment is not received. A higher hospitalization rate suggests poorer management of a chronic disease. Generally, a shorter length of stay signals that things went well during the hospitalization and that patients recuperate in less time. Longer stays in the hospital may indicate adverse or unexpected outcomes, lack of discharge planning, or over-utilization of resources. On the other hand, shorter stays may indicate under-utilization of health care resources or too-soon discharges that cause additional admissions in the future.
HMO members being treated for a heart attack need quick, appropriate treatment and follow-up by a medical professional.
Procedures are performed either in an inpatient or an ambulatory surgery setting. Location frequently provides insight into differing treatment standards among HMOs and may help identify treatment patterns by physicians or hospitals in the HMO provider networks. Practice patterns often vary across providers and geographic location. Procedure rates provide one way to study differences across HMOs associated with network management. Differences among procedure locales may suggest a divergence of network standards and protocols, or the HMO's referral to less expensive ambulatory care settings. Complications may lead to potential patient injury, increased insurance premiums, and increased costs due to rehospitalizations and higher levels of post-procedure utilization.
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