HEDIS and Quality

Quality Corner

Substance Use Disorder and/or Mental Illness Discharges

There are three specific HEDIS measures that focus on patients recently discharged from the emergency department or hospital for substance use and/or mental illness. 

Read this month’s Quality Corner article to review best practices for these HEDIS follow-up measures.

Why HEDIS?

Accurate coding of HEDIS (Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set) measures can help identify and eliminate gaps in care and disparities in health and health care. This helps ensure timely and appropriate care. It also helps monitor preventive care and facilitate timely claim adjudication, incentives, and payments.

Health plans are measured on how well they perform and improve in quality, effectiveness of care, access to care, and member satisfaction. These measures are calculated using specific CPT and ICD-10 codes found in claims and encounters data.

According to the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), HEDIS is the most widely used set of performance measures in the managed care industry. It consists of over 90 measurements that are used to compare health plan quality across the nation and are required for health plan accreditation. Accreditation helps ensure plan members receive quality care from their health plan and providers.

How can you improve HEDIS scores?

  1. Submit valid CPT and ICD-10 codes on each encounter or claim.
  2. Document your services and medical findings in the patient’s medical chart.
  3. Encourage your patients to schedule preventive exams.
  4. Remind your patients to follow up with ordered tests.
  5. Make outreach calls to noncompliant patients.

HEDIS documentation and coding guidelines

AmeriHealth Caritas North Carolina’s (ACNC) HEDIS Documentation and Coding Guidelines can be found in NaviNet. There you can find a detailed overview of the HEDIS measures, including descriptions, coding recommendations, and actionable takeaways.

HEDIS care gaps

Care gaps are recommended preventive care services that are missing. You may address these gaps when your patient comes in for an office visit. Care gaps are based on HEDIS measures and may impact your quality scores.

Participating primary care providers can access and resolve HEDIS care gaps for ACNC’s members via NaviNet using the following steps:

  • Log in to NaviNet.
  • Check the Activity tab to see alerts for care gaps that need your response.
    • Alternatively, to see the list of your patients who have care gaps, click Workflows > Patient Documents. Care gaps can also be accessed via Eligibility and Benefits Inquiry, Member Clinical Summary, or Care Gap Query Report.

As a reminder, it’s important we work together to identify, address, and help eliminate health disparities. When accessing and reviewing care gaps, be sure to also group the data by race, ethnicity, and language (REL) to identify the populations that are experiencing a disparity for a specific measure. Focusing efforts on starting with the population that has the lowest HEDIS compliance rate can help close gaps in care and work toward reducing disparities.

Tools and references

Providers