Public Payers News

OPA Report Cards Let CA Healthcare Consumers Compare Choices

By Jacqueline DiChiara

- The California Office of the Patient Advocate (OPA) has released the latest edition of online quality Report Cards intended to help healthcare consumers better compare care quality with the mere click of a mouse or finger swipe across a mobile screen. Millions of Californians will soon be in the midst of an upcoming enrollment period, faced with the often complicated decision and arduous task of choosing a health plan through an employer or via the state’s health insurance exchange, Covered California.

Preferred Provider Organization PPO Report Card

Covered California – which includes nearly 13 percent of all Marketplace enrollees paying for nationwide coverage – has had some alleged hiccups in the past regarding such executions of online transparency. In last month’s interview with RevCycleIntelligence.com, Brian Hoyt, Managing Director at Berkeley Research Group criticized Covered California’s recent decision to pull its online provider directory and subsequently direct consumers to the individual directories regarding their participating health plans.

Nonetheless, according to last week’s OPA press release, the tri-lingual (available in English, Spanish, and Chinese) Report Cards let healthcare consumers compare care quality from over 16 million commercially insured consumers among California’s ten largest health maintenance organizations (HMOs), six largest Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs), and over 200 medical groups.

“We’ve made it even easier for consumers to compare plans and medical groups based on what really matters to them by doing a side-by-side comparison of just two plans or a couple of groups,” says Elizabeth Abbott, OPA Director, within the press release. “Consumers can also sort the groups and plans by county, organization name, or by those that received the top rating score in their area. We think it is important that consumers can find the facts they need quickly and make a better informed decision with a very easy to use application,” Abbott maintains.

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  • Topics within the online report cards are categorized according to personalized interest level, such as cancer screening information, diabetes care, and mental health information, the press release explains. By entering information via a series of provided dropdown menus, healthcare consumers can then see a list of PPOs and their corresponding star-rating level.

    Star-ratings systems, although perhaps quite useful to those looking to choose a weekend movie flick, the top Mexican restaurant, or merely verify the quality of a spontaneous online purchase, may be quite flawed when it comes to healthcare assessment. As RevCycleIntelligence.com reported, star-ratings may be merely inaccurate, padded, and essentially flawed methods of quality assessment.

    Nonetheless, as not all score cards are created equally, the benefits of such a star-based report card system may merely mean the enhanced creation of a keenly educated consumer population. “We want all Californians to be able to make the best health care decisions possible and the Report Cards are an invaluable resource,” Abbott claims.