Rhode Island Health Insurers Ranked Among America’s Best Medicaid Plans for 2008

For the Fourth Year in a Row, Each Earn Top Ten Distinction in U.S. News & World Report/NCQA “America’s Best Health Plans” Review

Rhode Island’s three “RIte Care” health insurers - Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island (Neighborhood), Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island and United Healthcare of New England - are once again ranked among the nation’s ten best Medicaid health plans. The rankings are found in a 2008-09 America’s Best Health Plans, a joint report by U.S. News & World Report and the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA).

Neighborhood leads the pack with a 4th place ranking, Blue Cross & Blue Shield was next in 8th, and United rounded out Rhode Island’s strong showing in 10th.

2008 marks the fourth year in a row that all three of the RIte Care Medicaid managed care plans have earned a top ten distinction in the U.S.News’ “America’s Best Health Plans” edition. The rankings appeared today on U.S. News’ web site and in the November 17th issue of the magazine (on newsstands now).

“These rankings remind us of the strong commitment Rhode Island has to delivering quality, affordable health care to those most in need,” said Providence Community Health Centers CEO Merrill Thomas. “The Department of Human Services and each of the plans are to be congratulated for these results.”

The U.S.News & World Report/NCQA “America’s Best Health Plans 2008-09”* list was determined by data drawn from 186 Medicaid plans. Health plan members throughout the country were surveyed on issues such as access to care and overall satisfaction. NCQA also reviewed health plans’ prevention measures, treatment outcomes and accreditation standards performance to calculate an overall quality score. More details on the methodology used to rank plans can be found here.

“The promise of managed care is that by taking a comprehensive approach to service delivery, plans can change utilization patterns for the better, expanding access, improving quality and reducing costs,” said Dawn Wardyga, Program Director/Public Policy Coordinator for Family Voices at RIPIN. “These rankings are further proof that this model is working.”

Average scores for Medicaid plans on most measures have improved steadily over the past several years.  Particularly, the plans have been improving on a range of measures such as immunizations, cancer screening and treating asthma. These improvements follow federal and state mandates to report performance scores in these and other areas suggesting that public reporting of such scores is an effective way to improve health care quality.

* America’s Best Health Plans is a trademark of U.S.News & World Report

Source:

Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island
November 7, 2008