Report Gives Utah HMOs Good Marks, but There’s Room for Improvement

02.04.2010 by Whittney Evans

(KCPW News) Health Maintenance Organizations or HMOs in Utah are making gains in childhood immunizations and general access to healthcare, according to a study by the Utah Department of Health.  CHIP and Medicaid HMOs did well when compared to national averages, while commercial HMOs had the most room for improvement.  HMO Health Program Manager Dr. Sam Vanous says there are always ways to get better.

“For the commercial side, the main thing that I saw with those were a lot of the cancer screenings, colorectal, breast and cervical cancer screenings,” he told KCPW.  “Those were the ones that seemed to need the most improvement on average. Some health plans do better than others depending on the measure.”

Vanous says HMOs could also improve in providing Chlamydia testing for women ages 16 to 25. But overall, he says Utah plans are something to be proud of.

“The CHIP program has done really well this year. They’re on average at least for 50 percent of the measures. They’ve done really well with childhood immunizations as well as access,” said Vanous.  “Medicaid, they’ve scored above the national average on over 60 percent of the measures that we reported. So they’re improving each year.”

The Health Plan Quality of Care Report is used to help Utahns gauge the performance of their health plans and see how they stack up against national and regional health plans.