On a regular basis, we look at our outcome data on several key metrics and compare it to national benchmarks. We get these benchmarks through the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) that gathers this data through millions of health insurance claims each year. Two of the metrics we look at are hypertension and diabetes. We measure how many of our patients with those diagnoses are “under control”, so we look at blood pressures for those with hypertension and hemoglobin A1c for those with diabetes. Every year, we find that our outcomes EXCEED those patients nationally who have Medicaid (which is a comparable population) but we also exceed patients who have private insurance through a PPO! This is incredible. Remember – this means that our patients who have absolutely NO insurance and are low income have better outcomes than people who have insurance!
