Flint, Mich. – McLaren Health Plan has earned recognition from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) for its multicultural outreach and efforts to reduce health care access and delivery disparities within diverse communities.
The NCQA awards its Multicultural Health Care (MHC) Distinction designation to organizations that meet or exceed its rigorous requirements for multicultural health care. It recognizes organizations that lead the market in providing culturally and linguistically sensitive services and work to reduce health care disparities.
“We are honored to have earned this distinction” said Nancy Jenkins, president and CEO of McLaren Health Plan.
“Our mission is to enhance our members’ health status in the communities we serve, and we are committed to ensuring we maintain the highest standards of quality, service and care to all people,” Jenkins added.
The MHC 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.
The MHC program evaluates how well an organization complies with the standards for the following areas: collection of race/ethnicity and language data; provision of language assistance; cultural responsiveness; and quality improvement of culturally and linguistically appropriate services, and reduction of health care disparities.
“Earning Multicultural Health Care Distinction shows that an organization is making a breakthrough in providing excellent health care to diverse populations,” said NCQA President Margaret E. O’Kane.
“I congratulate any organization that achieves this level of distinction,” O’Kane. added. “Eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health care is essential to improving the quality of care overall.”
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.
McLaren Health Plan (MHP), a subsidiary of McLaren Health Care Corp., has been operating as a Michigan-based licensed health maintenance organization (HMO) since 1998 and today delivers health care benefits to more than 260,000 members. The HMO was started to serve Michigan’s Medicaid population and has added group, individual and Medicare products, along with a third-party administrator called Health Advantage Inc. for self-funded employer groups. In 2015, MHP was awarded a contract to service every county in the Lower Peninsula of the state of Michigan – the only provider-owned health plan to achieve this designation by the Michigan Department of Community Health. MHP has earned the prestigious Pinnacle Award every year since 2013 from the Michigan Association of Health Plans and is also accredited by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA).
