NCQA Confers Health Equity Accreditation on Elevance Health Medicaid Plans

Elevance Health announced that 21 Medicaid plans have achieved health equity accreditation from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA).

“Advancing health equity is a priority for everyone at Elevance Health, and we hold ourselves accountable for addressing the root causes that drive poor health outcomes,” Aimée Dailey, president of Medicaid at Elevance Health, said in the press release. “It’s an opportunity to continue to address the unique needs and improve the health of the diverse communities we serve.”

The nearly two dozen health plans serve beneficiaries in states across the US, from Texas to Wisconsin and from Maryland to California. The membership of the 21 health plans that received the NCQA health equity accreditation equaled more than nine in ten Medicaid beneficiaries who were enrolled in Elevance Health plans (93 percent), Dailey mentioned.

The payer announced that these plans were the first to receive this accreditation for the full three-year timeframe. Elevance Health employs a “health equity by design” model. This means that the payer aims to design its services with cultural humility in mind and with the aim of decreasing care disparities.

“While our ongoing work to advance health equity, specifically with this accreditation, is something to celebrate, it is just the beginning. It’s the foundation from which we will continue to innovate in our partnerships and journey towards designing an ecosystem in which all people, regardless of race or ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and geographic or financial access can receive individualized care that optimizes their health and well-being,” Darrell Gray, II, MD, chief health equity officer at Elevance Health, said in the press release.

One of the payer’s latest efforts to improve health equity involved enrolling Medicaid leaders in a course on advancing health equity, offered through the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.

Prior to the news that the payer had received NCQA health equity accreditation, Elevance Health announced that the company intends to acquire a comprehensive specialty pharmacy. The payer noted that this acquisition will enhance the company’s goal of providing whole person care.

Earlier in 2022, Centene received a health equity innovation award from NCQA. The payer’s HbA1fc testing model helped shrink the gap between testing among American Indian and Alaska Native populations in Arizona and their White counterparts.

NCQA has been redesigning its scoring methods and creating accreditation programs to address health equity’s role in health plan quality. In August 2022, the organization indicated that it would be requiring more race and gender quality measures into its 2023 Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS).

When CMS proposed introducing a health equity index and sought stakeholder input, AHIP suggested that CMS partner with NCQA and organizations like it to design the index, citing the organization’s work in health equity accreditation.