CIGNA Wins Award for Innovation in Multicultural Health Care from the National Committee for Quality Assurance
WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) today honored CIGNA with a “Recognizing Innovation in Multicultural Health Care Award” for the company’s efforts to match behavioral health providers to the needs of culturally- and linguistically-diverse members.
CIGNA’s “Facilitating Cultural and Language Match in Behavioral Care” program increased satisfaction and access for minority patients seeking behavioral health care by adding more ethnic practitioners to the network, collecting additional diversity information on a voluntary basis from practitioners to share with members, and starting an open access model for routine outpatient behavioral care. The program was one of nine award winners that NCQA selected from 35 submissions.
“CIGNA has created an innovative program that health plans nationwide should use as a model for bridging language and cultural gaps that so easily get in the way of quality health care,” said Margaret E. O’Kane, president of NCQA. “Creating a patient-centered, multicultural health care system must be among the highest priorities of providers and health plans alike.”
“We are honored to receive this recognition from NCQA,” said Doug Nemecek, M.D., national medical director. “We understand that every plan member is an individual consumer with unique needs. Numerous studies have documented disparities in health care for minorities, particularly in behavioral care. We have enhanced our behavioral health network and provider search tools to help reduce disparities in health care, and to ensure that plan members have information that helps them to choose providers who best meet their needs. We have also worked to provide easier access to behavioral care.”
Over the past several years, CIGNA's behavioral health organization implemented a multi-faceted program to address disparities. In 2003, it moved to an open access model for routine outpatient behavioral care that allows members to access network practitioners without prior authorization. Later, it launched a communication program targeted to practitioners that promoted cultural awareness, encouraged provision of voluntary information such as practitioner gender, ethnicity and language spoken, and recruited more African American, Latino, and Spanish-speaking practitioners.
In tandem with this effort, the company introduced the provider self-introduction feature on its Web site in 2004, which practitioners use to describe their practice, treatment approach, and practice setting. The feature, which members can use to select a provider, also allows members to search by practitioner language, gender, ethnicity, age treated, and clinical specialty, and also includes the practitioner’s photograph, if available. Beyond language, gender, ethnicity, age treated, and clinical specialty, CIGNA also collects additional voluntary information from behavioral practitioners, such as sexual orientation, substance abuse recovery status, religion, veteran status and disability. While plan members cannot access this sensitive information online, they can call a CIGNA personal advocate who can identify practitioners with these attributes to address member preferences.
As a result of these efforts, the number of non-Caucasian practitioners and those speaking a language other than English in CIGNA's network increased dramatically between 2001 and 2006. Measures of member satisfaction among African American and other non-Caucasian members increased significantly for both urgent and routine access to care between 2003 and 2006, and the percentage of members indicating that their practitioner met their cultural, linguistic, or specialty needs also improved significantly.
NCQA bestowed the award through its Recognizing Innovation in Multicultural Health Care program. The award arose from projects conducted by NCQA – with major funding from The California Endowment and support from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services – to investigate the feasibility for health plans to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate care and to monitor health care disparities using clinical quality data. CIGNA accepted the award at a luncheon ceremony in Washington as part of NCQA’s conference, Breakthroughs in Reducing Health Care Disparities.
CIGNA (NYSE:CI) provides employers with benefits, expertise and services that improve the health, well-being and productivity of their employees. With approximately 47 million covered lives in the United States and around the world, CIGNA's operating subsidiaries offer a full portfolio of medical, dental, behavioral health, pharmacy and vision care benefits and group life, accident and disability insurance. Web site: http://www.cigna.com/.
NCQA is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to improving health care quality. NCQA accredits and certifies a wide range of health care organizations and recognizes physicians in key clinical areas. NCQA’s Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) is the most widely used performance measurement tool in health care. NCQA is committed to providing health care quality information through the Web, media and data licensing agreements in order to help consumers, employers and others make more informed health care choices. For more information, visit www.ncqa.org.
The California Endowment, a private, statewide health foundation, was established in 1996 to expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities, and to promote fundamental improvements in the health status of all Californians. For more information, visit www.calendow.org.
