HPRC for Employers

By choosing a health plan that has earned NCQA Accreditation, you can be confident that your employees are receiving care from a health plan that has been rigorously evaluated. The Health Plan Report Card can help you and your colleagues assess and compare the value of each plan your company offers or is considering offering.

For employers, health care quality is an issue that goes straight to the bottom line. The question, "How much does this health plan cost?" is about more than just premiums. It also includes sick days, sick wages, and worker productivity. Consider that:

In 2006, the failure to routinely follow recommended guidelines for evidence-based care for just five conditions—asthma, depression, diabetes, heart disease and hypertension—cost employers $7.4 billion in lost productivity.
The same suboptimal care resulted in 45.0 million unnecessary sick days in 2006. That's the equivalent of 180,000 full-time employees – or all of Salt Lake City -- calling in sick every day — for a year!
The cost of depression in the nation’s workforce is estimated at more than $30 billion per year.
Smoking-related health care expenditures and productivity losses exceed $167 billion annually.

Data such as these show how low-quality health care leads to lower productivity and increases in health care costs that none of us can afford — and all of us can avoid.

More than thirty studies have been conducted during the past decade on the links between health risks, medical costs, and workplace productivity. The studies provide compelling evidence that investing in employees’ good health pays off in measurable ways. NCQA has a free online tool--the Quality Dividend Calculator --that affords you the opportunity to see for yourself how quality care can impact your bottom line. Alternately, contact InformationProducts@ncqa.org for more information about a health plan-specific version of the Calculator tool or custom plan report cards for your employees.

In the end, quality matters. As an employer making contracting decisions, you have the opportunity to demand that your health plan routinely engage in quality measurement activities and continuously work to improve the quality of care delivered to your employees. One way to do so is to ask if your plan is NCQA-Accredited.

And if your health plan isn't NCQA-Accredited, there's a simple question to ask: Why not?