This June 12 Mathematica Policy Research Inc. new report describes the National Health Plan Collaborative’s (NHPC) efforts to help large health plans reduce racial and ethnic health disparities.  Created in 2004, the NHPC is sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).  Mathematica’s report, The National Health Plan Collaborative: Overview of its Origins, Accomplishments, and Lessons Learned,” found that most participating plans made significant progress in disparities measurement and reduction.

From the report:

Beginning at the NHPC’s inception, collaboration was a primary objective of participants. Sponsors supported this goal based on the perception that such collective action and engagement on the issue of health care disparities would heighten its prominence and encourage participating health plans (and indirectly the insurance industry overall) to appreciate why disparities are an issue. This could in turn lead them to think creatively on approaches to measure and reduce such disparities. Outside sponsorship from leading independent public and private sector sponsors also was considered essential by many participants, particularly in the NHPC’s first few years, when the importance of and approaches to examining disparities among plan memberships were less clear.

This brief summarizes our findings from the evaluation of the NHPC. We first provide background on the NHPC, including its beginnings, the way its work was divided across two phases (2004-2006 and 2006-2008), and where the NHPC stands currently. We then discuss what MPR’s evaluation sought to achieve, along with its main findings, focusing first on overarching accomplishments related to disparities and then on accomplishments on specific activities. Next, we describe the NHPC Toolkit—the main vehicle through which the group disseminated its Phase II work. We conclude with a discussion of the broader lessons learned from the NHPC and how these are relevant both to disparities in general and to other policy issues in which public/private collaboration may be relevant.

Full report: The National Health Plan Collaborative: Overview of Its Origins, Accomplishments, and Lessons Learned (PDF | 165.23 KB)  

Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. (2009). The national health plan collaborative: overview of its origins, accomplishments, and lessons learned. Taylor, E.F. and Gold, M.