Quality Improvement Program

Health Net's Quality Improvement (QI) program provides the infrastructure for all managed care products. The QI program is designed to monitor and evaluate the adequacy and appropriateness of health and administrative services on a continuous and systematic basis. The QI program also supports the identification and pursuit of opportunities to improve health outcomes and member and provider satisfaction. The purpose and goals of the QI program are to: 

• Establish standards for both the quality and safety of clinical care and service, as well as monitor and evaluate the adequacy and appropriateness of health care and administrative services on a continuous and systematic basis. The QI program also supports the identification and pursuit of opportunities to improve health outcomes, and both member and provider satisfaction.
• Support Health Net's strategic business plan to promote safe, high quality care and services while maintaining full compliance with regulations and standards established by federal and state regulatory and accreditation agencies.
• Objectively and systematically monitor and evaluate services provided to Health Net members to ensure conformity to professionally recognized standards of practice and codes of ethics.
• Provide an integrative structure that links knowledge and processes together throughout the organization to assess and improve the quality and safety of clinical care with quality service provided to members.
• Develop and implement an annual quality improvement work plan and continually evaluate the effectiveness of plan activities at  increasing and maintaining performance of target measures, and act, as needed, to enhance performance.
• Support a partnership among members, practitioners, providers, regulators, and employers to provide effective health management, health education, disease prevention and management and facilitate appropriate use of health care resources and services.
• Design, implement and measure organization-wide programs that improve member, practitioner and provider satisfaction with Health Net's clinical delivery system. These programs are population-based ongoing clinical assessments and are evaluated to determine the effectiveness of clinical practice guidelines, preventive health guidelines and care management programs.
• Monitor and increase Health Net's performance in promoting quality of service to improve member, practitioner and provider satisfaction through the use of satisfaction surveys, focused studies, and analysis of data (e.g., administrative, primary care, high-volume specialists and specialty services, and behavioral health and chemical dependency services).
• Promote systems and business operations that provide and protect the confidentiality, privacy and security of member, practitioner and provider information while ensuring the integrity of data collection and reporting systems. This is done in accordance with state and federal requirements and accreditation guidelines.
• Anticipate, understand and respond to customer needs, be customer-driven and dedicated to a standard of excellence in all customer relationships.
• Provide a means by which members may seek resolution of perceived failure by practitioners and providers or Health Net personnel to provide appropriate services, access to care and quality of care. Identify, review and investigate potential quality of care issues and take corrective action, when appropriate.

Health Net utilizes several methods to measure access to care, including telephone-based surveys and member experience surveys. Provider satisfaction with the timeliness and usefulness of information received from other physicians and various care settings is also assessed on a regular basis to measure the coordination of care in the network. Opportunities for improvement are identified by examining provider ratings of key elements in the following functional areas: access and availability, case management, prior authorization, cultural and linguistic services, concurrent review, and discharge planning.

The Health Net QI program includes a written program description and an annually revised QI work plan that defines the activities and planned improvements for the year. The annual work plan is developed following an evaluation of the previous year's activities and accomplishments. The Health Net Quality Improvement Committee (HNQIC), Health Net Community Solutions (HNCS) UM/QI Committee, and the Health Net board of directors approves and monitors the annual Health Net QI program and the QI work plan. The board of directors receives quarterly reports regarding medical affairs, QI, utilization management (UM), and pharmacy.