Excellus awards quality improvement incentive payments to area hospitals

UTICA, N.Y. — Excellus BlueCross BlueShield has awarded $818,254 in quality improvement incentive payments to eight hospitals in the Utica–Rome and North Country regions as part of its Hospital Performance Incentive Program.

Adirondack Medical Center-Saranac Lake, Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital, Faxton St. Luke’s Healthcare (MVHS), Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital, Oneida Health Hospital, Rome Health, Samaritan Medical Center, and St. Elizabeth Medical Center (MVHS) all received incentive payments. They are part of 31 upstate hospitals and health centers that earned a combined $28 million in quality improvement payments.

“It’s part of our mission to ensure that all in our communities have equitable access to high quality health care,” Excellus Regional President Eve Van de Wal said in a recent press release announcing the awards. “The foundation for achieving that is a collaborative relationship with our local hospitals and physician partners.”

Participating hospitals and health centers met goals in the following areas:

• Clinical processes of care focused on improvements in follow up after hospitalization; quality measures related to diabetes, cardio obstructive pulmonary disease, and surgical care; and other quality improvement measures.
• Establishing a patient safety center for reductions in hospital-acquired infections, readmissions, and other adverse events or errors that affected patient care.
• Patient satisfaction using the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey of patients’ perspectives of hospital care.

In addition to meeting required clinical and patient-safety measures in 2022, 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 Service, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and others.

Since 2005, Excellus has paid out more than $400 million in incentives to hospitals.

Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, has about 1.5 million upstate New York members. It’s the largest health insurer in Central New York.