The NCQA produces The State of Health Care Quality Report every year to focus on key quality issues the United States faces and to drive improvement in the delivery of evidence-based medicine. Health plans voluntarily disclose the clinical quality, customer experience and resource use data that are the report’s foundation. This report documents performance trends over time, tracks variation in care and recommends quality improvements, including for colorectal cancer screening rates. The report showed some progress on colorectal cancer screening rates with Medicare plans in 2016. Medicare HMO plan rates remained steady, but Medicare PPO plans jumped from 67% in 2015 to 70% in 2016. Commercial plan rates, on the other hand, dig not change significantly. Commercial plan HMO rates dipped slightly (63% in 2015 and 62% in 2016) while commercial plan PPO rates climbed marginally (57% in 2015 and 58% in 2016), showing that there is still much work for us to do. You can view the colorectal cancer screening HEDIS rate trends here and in the chart below.

We join NCQA in commending all the health plans that contributed data for this report and for the commitment to accountability and quality improvement they show by disclosing their performance.

Interested in learning more about national, state, and local level colorectal cancer incidence, mortality, and screening rates? Visit the Data & Progress webpage.