Today the National Business Coalition on Health (NBCH) issued its annual report on how America's health plans are doing to improve care and control costs for diabetes. The analysis is based on health plan survey data from NBCH's eValue8™ program, the nation's leading Request for Information (RFI) tool used by employers, coalitions and their purchaser members to set expectations and measure health plan performance.
"eValue8 is an excellent example of employers and coalitions working with health plans in their community to move the health care reform agenda forward," said Andrew Webber, president and CEO of NBCH. "By focusing on the management of chronic conditions such as diabetes, we are working to move the health delivery system away from demand management and cost-shifting, to one that promotes health, prevents illness, coordinates care delivery, and ultimately addresses the factors driving up costs."
The publicly available report, "2009 Health Plan Diabetes Performance," outlines important treatment goals for diabetes and the approaches plans are using to prevent the disease and improve its care. With health care reform on the horizon and the inexorable movement towards electronic health information systems, coalitions and employers hope to see an acceleration of activities that stem the tide of new diabetes cases and prevent the devastation and increasing costs of improperly managed disease.
eValue8 report findings
The findings indicate that health plans are moving forward on diabetes quality efforts, but there have been no major transformations in approaches or outcomes.