UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Ohio Awarded NCQA Distinction in Multicultural Health Care

COLUMBUS, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) has recognized UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Ohio with its Distinction in Multicultural Health Care award for delivery of culturally appropriate and quality improvement interventions serving diverse populations.

NCQA is an independent, not-for-profit organization dedicated to assessing and reporting on the quality of managed care plans, managed behavioral health care organizations, preferred provider organizations, new health plans, physician organizations, credentials verification organizations, disease management programs and other health-related programs.

Multicultural Health Care Distinction is a nationally recognized evaluation that purchasers, regulators and consumers can use to assess which organizations have earned distinction by meeting rigorous standards in serving a diverse population.

“NCQA identifies organizations providing culturally-competent care, and this distinction is a standard measure to reducing health care disparities and ensuring people of all backgrounds and cultures receive quality care,” said Mike Roaldi, CEO of UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Ohio. “We are committed to achieving health equity and closing gaps in multicultural health care, and we are honored to be recognized as a leader in Ohio.”

Multicultural health care accreditation through NCQA evaluates how well a health plan provides culturally and linguistically appropriate services (CLAS) and complies with standards for:

• Providing language assistance
• Cultural responsiveness
• Quality improvement of CLAS
• Reducing health care disparities
• Collecting race/ethnicity and language data

“Earning Multicultural Health Care Distinction shows that an organization is making a breakthrough in providing excellent health care to diverse populations. I congratulate any organization that achieves this level of distinction,” said NCQA President Margaret E. O’Kane. “Eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health care is essential to improving the quality of care overall.”

The NCQA award follows UnitedHealthcare’s recent CMS Health Equity national award, recognizing work with high-risk members for maternal and infant mortality in Mahoning County, Ohio. Both CMS Health Equity and NCQA Distinction in Multicultural Health Care recognize UnitedHealthcare’s ongoing health disparities action plan efforts.

For more information about the NCQA Distinction in Multicultural Health Care, visit www.ncqa.org.

About NCQA

NCQA is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to improving health care quality. NCQA accredits and certifies a wide range of health care organizations. It also recognizes clinicians and practices in key areas of performance. NCQA’s Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS®) is the most widely used performance measurement tool in health care. NCQA’s website (ncqa.org) contains information to help consumers, employers and others make more informed health care choices. NCQA can be found online at ncqa.org, on Twitter @NCQA, on Facebook at facebook.com/NCQA.org and on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/company/ncqa.

About UnitedHealthcare

UnitedHealthcare is dedicated to helping people live healthier lives and making the health system work better for everyone by simplifying the health care experience, meeting consumer health and wellness needs, and sustaining trusted relationships with care providers. In the United States, UnitedHealthcare offers the full spectrum of health benefit programs for individuals, employers, and Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, and contracts directly with more than 1.3 million physicians and care professionals, and 6,500 hospitals and other care facilities nationwide. The company also provides health benefits and delivers care to people through owned and operated health care facilities in South America. UnitedHealthcare is one of the businesses of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), a diversified health care company. For more information, visit UnitedHealthcare at www.uhc.com or follow @UHC on Twitter.