Excellus BlueCross BlueShield announced it has awarded three North Country hospitals and five in the Utica–Rome area a total of $1 million in quality improvement incentive payments in 2019. They’re among 36 upstate New York hospitals and health centers that were awarded nearly $30 million in the nonprofit health insurer’s hospital-performance incentive program. Eight hospitals […]
Excellus BlueCross BlueShield announced it has awarded three North Country hospitals and five in the Utica–Rome area a total of $1 million in quality improvement incentive payments in 2019.
They’re among 36 upstate New York hospitals and health centers that were awarded nearly $30 million in the nonprofit health insurer’s hospital-performance incentive program.
Eight hospitals in the North Country/Utica/Rome region participated in the program in 2019, sharing $1 million in quality improvement incentive payments. Participating hospitals included Samaritan Medical Center in Watertown; Adirondack Medical Center-Saranac Lake; Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital in Plattsburgh; Bassett Medical Center in Cooperstown; Faxton St. Luke’s Healthcare in Utica; St. Elizabeth Medical Center, also in Utica; Oneida Health Hospital; and Rome Memorial Hospital.
In addition, Central New York region hospitals that participated in this program in 2019 shared $6.1 million in quality improvement incentive payments. The participants included Upstate University Hospital’s sites in Syracuse and the town of Onondaga, Crouse Hospital in Syracuse, Oswego Hospital in Oswego, St. Joseph’s Health Hospital in Syracuse, and Guthrie Cortland Medical Center in Cortland.
Since 2005, Excellus BlueCross BlueShield’s program has paid out more than $311 million in quality improvement incentives. Excellus is Central New York’s largest health insurer.
Areas targeted for 2019 improvement included clinical processes of care, which were focused on improvements in follow-up after hospitalization, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), surgical care, and other measures unique to each participating hospital.
The areas also included patient safety, centered on reductions in hospital-acquired infections, readmissions, and other “adverse events or errors” that affect patient care.
They also included patient satisfaction, which involved the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey. It’s a national, standardized, publicly reported survey of patients’ perspectives of hospital care, Excellus said.
In addition to meeting required clinical and patient safety measures in 2019, other nationally endorsed measures and target outcomes were jointly agreed upon by each hospital and the health insurer using benchmarks established by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and others.
