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Excellus awards $24.2 million to Upstate hospitals
Excellus awards $24.2 million to Upstate hospitals
Excellus BlueCross BlueShield awarded 38 upstate New York hospitals and health centers a total of $24.2 million for quality improvements in 2017.
Part of the performance incentive program, an initiative which thus far has doled out $256 million to health care providers since 2005, the 2017 round of funding impacted eight Finger Lakes region hospitals, with awards valued at $12.2 million. Clifton Springs Hospital, F.F. Thompson Hospital, Highland Hospital, Newark-Wayne Community Hospital, Nicholas H. Noyes Memorial Hospital, Rochester General Hospital, Strong Memorial Hospital and Unity Hospital all came in on the 2017 list of participants.
The program looked at 48 different strategic measures for improvement, including clinical and patient safety. Following the funding, BCBS reported an 88 percent success rate in reaching established goals in the institution.
“We are very pleased that continued collaboration with our provider partners has resulted in improved quality of care for the communities we jointly serve,” said Excellus vice president of health care improvement Carrie Whitcher, in a statement. “Aligning incentives across payers and providers will continue to advance care delivery and related outcomes.”
The program is slated to continue in 2018, with a specific focus on clinical processes in regard to diabetes, COPD, pneumonia and surgical care, patient safety in regard to reducing clinical infections and readmissions and the overall satisfaction of patients. All goals set in the incentive program are based on recommended benchmarks set by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and other health care research institutions.
“By improving the processes for caring for people, by concentrating on reducing the number of hospital acquired infections and adverse events, by listening to patients’ concerns, these hospitals are giving our members better quality care and improving their health outcomes,” Whitcher said.
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