Value Partnerships: Focusing on measuring and addressing the patient care experience

Improving patient care has always been a primary goal of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan’s Value Partnerships program. Patients not only want to receive the best health care possible when receiving care at a doctor’s office — they want the best experience when receiving that care.

Value Partnerships has teamed with our Customer Experience department to provide support to physician organizations and their practices to measure and improve the patient care experience. Their efforts include:

• Capabilities built into the Patient-Centered Medical Home Neighbor and Organized Systems of Care programs (e.g., PCMH-N capabilities 4.4, 11.4 and 14.9 and OSC capability 16.6). These are capabilities that support practices in their efforts to measure and improve patient experience of care. Physician Group Incentive Program participating physician organizations and Organized Systems of Care can receive rewards for implementing PCMH-N and OSC capabilities. For more on the capabilities, click here.
  
  
• Michigan Patient Experience of Care, or MiPEC, workgroup — Launched in 2014, the workgroup is a voluntary, statewide collaborative initiative established to help support the measuring, reporting and improving of the patient care experience in a doctor’s practice. The hope is to have one standardized, statewide plan to measure, report and improve patient care experience. MiPEC is led by the Greater Detroit Area Health Council. Blue Cross — through the PGIP — is a participant in the workgroup, along with other Michigan health care plans. Currently, there are 16 participating physician organizations. Others interested in participating have an opportunity to join MiPEC during the recruitment period at the beginning of the year.
  
  
• Patient Care Experience Initiative — Launched by Blue Cross’ Customer Experience as a pilot program in 2015, the goal is to engage practices through physician organizations by using tools designed to identify areas to focus on and take actions for the improvement of the patient care experience. This initiative was designed to address areas for Blue Cross health plan improvements in member experience of care with their doctors based on the 2015 Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey. Those areas for improvement included getting care quickly, getting needed care and coordination of care.

Stay tuned because Value Partnerships is also developing other ways to support the measurement and improvement of a patient’s care experience through new PCMH-N and OSC capabilities.

For more information, contact Robin Mitchell, manager, Value Partnerships, at rmitchell@bcbsm.com or 313-448-7015. You can also contact Laurie Latvis, director of Provider Consulting Services, at llatvis@bcbsm.com or 313-225-7778.