Care Choices HMO Earns Excellent Accreditation from NCQA

FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich., December 17, 2004 -- Care Choices HMO has again received the highest level of accreditation, “Excellent,” from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving health care quality. The rating comes following a rigorous survey of Care Choices by NCQA’s team of trained health care experts. Care Choices has held an Excellent rating since the year 2000.

NCQA accreditation provides purchasers and consumers with information to evaluate the quality of different health plans along a variety of important dimensions, and to make their health plan decisions based on demonstrated value rather than simply cost. As part of the accreditation process, health plans are required to submit audited data on key clinical and service measures.

Care Choices received four stars – the highest rating available – in each of the five categories of the NCQA Health Plan Report Card:

• Access and Service – Care Choices members have access to the care and service they need
• Qualified Providers – Care Choices assesses each doctor’s qualifications and member satisfaction with its providers
• Staying Healthy – Care Choices helps members maintain good health and avoid illness
• Getting Better – Care Choices cares for members when they become sick
• Living With Illness – Care Choices cares for members when they have chronic conditions

“Our entire organization is committed to ensuring that our members get the high-quality care and service they deserve,” said William Alvin, president and CEO of Care Choices. “By working closely with our provider partners, we’ve achieved very impressive results in the areas of clinical care and service.”

For clinical quality of care, Care Choices rates among the top five plans in the East North Central Region of the United States, according to the 2004 State of Health Care Quality report from NCQA. For the second consecutive year, Care Choices was the only health plan in Michigan to be recognized for clinical care in the report.

For the third year running, Care Choices also received the highest member satisfaction rating in southeast Michigan² , according to the Quality Compass® report from NCQA, which provides comparative results of health plans regionally and nationally. In the 2004 report, Care Choices HMO rated among the top 10 percent of more than 260 health plans in the nation on the following measures:

• Rating of health plan
• Handling claims correctly
• Breast cancer screening
• Antidepressant medication management (practitioner contacts and acute phase treatment)
• Comprehensive diabetes care (LDL-C controlled and monitoring for diabetic nephropathy)
• Advising smokers to quit

Care Choices also received “Best in Class” designation in two areas: comprehensive diabetes care (LDL-C controlled); and breast cancer screening.

About Care Choices
Care Choices is a nonprofit health care organization and a subsidiary of Trinity Health, one of the nation’s leading providers of health care services. Since 1986, Care Choices has been providing quality health care to thousands of members throughout Southeast Michigan. Care Choices offers a broad, fully integrated network of physicians, hospitals and other health care professionals all sharing a strong commitment to improving the health status of the communities we serve by delivering effective and affordable health care. Care Choices HMO maintains the highest rating available of “Excellent” by the National Committee for Quality Assurance and holds a B+ financial-strength rating from A.M. Best Co.

¹ The source for data contained in this publication is Quality Compass® 2004 and is used with the permission of the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). Any analysis, interpretation or conclusion based on this data is solely that of the authors, and the NCQA specifically disclaims responsibility for any such analysis, interpretation or conclusion. Quality Compass is a registered trademark of the NCQA.
² Of the accredited commercial health plans in the five county metro area, including Livingston, Macomb, Oakland, Washtenaw and Wayne counties.