UPHP among Top Scoring Medicare-Medicaid Plans in 2016 CAHPS Survey

Posted on January 05, 2017

MARQUETTE– Integrated Care Resource Center recently released a snapshot of their overall rating of health plans in which Upper Peninsula Health Plan (UPHP) tied for 3rd in the nation for Medicare-Medicaid Plans. This national initiative of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services helps states improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of care for individuals dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid. UPHP MI Health Link is a Medicare-Medicaid plan that contracts with both Medicare and Medicaid to provide benefits of both programs to enrollees.

The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services is measuring consumer experience in multiple ways, including through beneficiary surveys, such as the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) survey. Medicare CAHPS surveys produce comparable data on the patient’s experience of care that allow objective and meaningful comparisons on domains that are important to consumers. In order to report CAHPS in a given year, health plans must have a minimum of 600 enrollees as of July 1st of the preceding calendar year. The current enrollment of UPHP MI Health Link is 4,120 members.

As part of the 2016 CAHPS survey, respondents were asked to rate their health plan on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 is the worst health plan possible and 10 is the best health plan possible. With 8.8 out of 10 on overall health plan rating, UPHP received one of the highest scores in the nation.

The scores below are the percentages of the best possible score each contract earned when consumers were asked to rate the health plan overall:

mmp-cahps-chart

During the 2016 reporting cycle, 40 Medicare-Medicaid Plans participating across eight states were able to report CAHPS. The survey data are publicly reported by contract. Public reporting of the survey results is designed to create incentives for contracts to improve their quality of care and also serves to enhance public accountability in health care by increasing the transparency of the quality of care provided by Medicare contracts.

CMS anticipates making additional information regarding 2016 CAHPS results under the Medicare-Medicaid Financial Alignment Initiative available in early 2017. The results from the Medicare CAHPS surveys are published in the Medicare & You handbook and on the Medicare Options Compare Web site (www.medicare.gov).

About UPHP

Upper Peninsula Health Plan currently serves over 47,000 members across five product lines (Michigan Medicaid, MIChild, Children with Special Health Care Services, MI Health Link, and Medicare Advantage) and its network exceeds 900 providers. Learn more at www.uphp.com.

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