The Hospital Quality & Efficiency Program (HQEP) is an agreement between Augusta Care Partners and Augusta Health to lower costs and improve quality for the health system. This year, the network has been under-performing on metrics related to breast and colorectal cancer screenings for the Augusta Health health plan population (see graphs below).
These screening rates are significantly below what we are able to achieve for our Medicare population, and have been the focus of the ACP Quality and Health Plan Committees. In addition to ongoing provider education efforts, ACP has collaborated with Augusta Health to streamline access to cancer screenings for health plan members. Based on that work, we are pleased to offer a new No-Hassle Cancer Screening service for Augusta Health’s insurance plan members. The process is simple: A plan member calls our case management team, answers a few pre-screening questions, and ACP works with the appropriate clinic to quickly get that member scheduled. Thanks to the flexibility of our physician partners and the Augusta Health system, no PCP order is required for either screening.
Employees eligible for breast and/or colorectal cancer screenings have been notified via mail about this new offering, and we were able to reach hundreds of Augusta Health plan members in-person at this November’s Benefits Fair. Feedback received at that event was extremely positive. We greatly appreciate the efforts of our network physicians in helping us ensure that health plan members get the screening and prevention services they need!