COLA expands base with chart extraction efforts
COLA, a health care, physician-directed, non-profit accreditation organization based in Columbia, MD, made a name for itself in laboratory accreditation. But it’s working to expand its client base with a concerted effort to develop a chart abstraction service. In January, it signed three new contracts for that program. Cape Health Plan of Southfield, MI, Cimarron Health Plan of Albuquerque, NM, and Preferred Health Partner-ship of Knoxville, TN, all signed contracts with COLA to have the company perform Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS) chart collection and abstraction services. Between the three health plans, COLA will be extracting information from 9,000 charts beginning this month.
According to COLA’s product and services manager Susan Foreman, MBA, the company has won eight such contracts since beginning the service three years ago.
Health plans and managed care organizations can opt for either on- or off-site data collection, depending on their level of comfort in sending charts through the mail and the amount they want to spend, she notes. "We can do this more efficiently than health plans," Foreman adds. "They don’t have to worry about deploying resources, spending money on expensive information systems, or recruiting and training staff to do this."
Charges are based on the number of charts abstracted, Foreman says. COLA staff looks for the 15 HEDIS measures on the charts, fill out paperwork, and return it to the managed care organization. The plan then enters the data into a computer system, runs rates programs, and calculates the number of "mets" for their entire population. That data are then sent to the National Committee on Quality Assurance (NCQA).
Foreman notes that there isn’t yet a computerized method of reporting HEDIS data, and it would take a "huge commitment" in information systems for it to work electronically. "We don’t have the systems to do statistic sampling right now," she says. Besides, the NCQA still requires hard copies of paper charts.
The HEDIS program at COLA is part of a "deliberate process of diversification," Foreman says, and they hope to get more of that business in the future. In addition, COLA is trying to get into the HIPPA compliance market and is developing Internet-based courses for lab personnel. For more information on COLA’s services, visit www.cola.org.
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