Addressing the Opioid Epidemic Through Measurement and Transparency

September 6, 2017 · NCQA Communications

There is another worthy opponent in the fight against the opioid epidemic — health plans. This year NCQA added two new HEDIS® measures created for health plans to track opioid use.

One measure tracks opioid use at high dose – this measures long-term, high dose use; a risk factor for overdose and death.

The second measure tracks opioid prescriptions from multiple providers or multiple pharmacies. Right now there’s no system for tracking  prescriptions that are filled from one state to the other. However, health plans can use claims data to track opioid prescriptions across state lines and from more than one provider.

Addressing the Opioid Epidemic

There is a lot more to these measures than tracking and gauging opioid use or overuse. In the video above, Dr. Mary Barton, NCQA VP for Performance Measurement and Jenna Williams-Bader, Director for Performance Measurement explain that health plans, as the newest group of stakeholders addressing the opioid epidemic, can help clinicians and patients cut back on overuse and find new treatments for pain.

Want to learn more? Check out the video! You may learn something new!