About These Trainings

The Health Equity Subscription Plan

This new offering is geared toward those who have expressed interest in and made a commitment to providing ongoing and equitable health care for all populations. The plan includes live webinars and on-demand courses that provides updates to NCQA’s Health Equity Accreditation and Health Equity Accreditation Plus programs. Additionally, you will hear information from organization representatives who will share their experiences about each of the programs, along with providing best practices tips and tools for continuing success with program goals. If your organization has started the survey submission process or is already accredited in NCQA’s Health Equity Accreditation and/or Health Equity Accreditation Plus programs, this plan is for you. There will be an opportunity to learn about important program updates, hear best practice examples and strategies for success, and ask questions live. 

The Health Equity Subscription will provide: 

• Registration to upcoming live events highlighting the latest updates on NCQA’s Health Equity Accreditation and Health Equity Accreditation Plus programs (Note: On-demand recordings will be made available for those who cannot make the live event or would like to hear the information again.)
• Access to on-demand Health Equity best practices courses from industry experts 
• Town Hall with key program architects and NCQA Accreditation staff 

Live Webinars:

Health Equity Accreditation 2023 Updates & Delegation - July 25, 2023 -  (Recording Now Available)

NCQA’s Health Equity Accreditation program focuses on the foundation of health equity work and helps healthcare organizations build an internal culture that identifies opportunities to reduce health inequities and improve patient care. Organizations will hear about program requirements and updates to the standards and guidelines released in July 2023, including information on delegation. 

See Yourself in NCQA’s Heath Equity Accreditation Programs Standards - August 10, 2023 - (Recording Now Available) 

Join us for a special live overview of NCQA’s Health Equity Accreditation and Health Equity Accreditation Plus programs. This session will cover:

• A high-level overview of program standards, highlighting how NCQA's framework helps payers, care delivery providers and other health care organizations to individually--and collaboratively--work to address inequities.
• Key changes and updates for the 2023 standards and guidelines, including automatic credit.

Attendees will learn why these programs are fundamental to helping health care organizations build high standards of care for their populations and become more familiar with the things they are best positioned to do with NCQA's accreditation

Advancing Health Equity with HEDIS: What's New and Looking Forward - September 13, 2023 -  (Recording Now Available)

NCQA subject matter experts will review our efforts to advance equity in HEDIS so far. This will include a discussion of frequently asked questions, the state of equity data and alignment with other measurement efforts in the field. NCQA will also preview upcoming Equity in HEDIS efforts for MY 2025 and beyond.

Health Equity “Ask the Expert” Town Hall - September 14, 2023 -  (Recording Now Available)

Join us for a special Town Hall to engage with NCQA resident experts of Health Equity Accreditation and Health Equity Accreditation Plus. During this live event, attendees will have ample opportunity to ask questions, address concerns and hear about policy updates and changes to the standards and guidelines. NCQA is committed to innovation and helping to support customers with this Town Hall, which is just one way we are working to bring more value to our programs. This session is unstructured; please be prepared with questions.

Ensure Success in the Journey to Health Equity Accreditation: The UPMC Experience - September 28, 2023 -  (Recording Now Available)

Over the past year, UPMC Insurance Services Division, which includes UPMC Health Plan and Community Care Behavioral Health Organization (CCBH), has been successful in multiple Health Equity Accreditation achievements. UPMC Health Plan was one of the first health plans to achieve Health Equity Accreditation and Health Equity Accreditation Plus participating in the NCQA Plus Pilot. CCBH, our Behavioral Health Managed Care Organization (BHMCO), successfully earned Health Equity Accreditation shortly thereafter. Not only have these accreditations provided a framework to meet our organization’s health equity goals – they are also now required by certain regulatory bodies and in consideration as requirements for others. In this session, we will discuss UPMC Insurance Services Division’s accreditation journey including lessons learned and the greatest contributors to our success. Representatives from UPMC Insurance Services Division will share their experience with Health Equity Accreditation for both the health equity accreditation base and plus programs. Session attendees will learn recommendations to initiate their accreditation processes through leadership buy-in, process management, and readiness assessments as well as some of the biggest challenges faced and ways to overcome them. They will also hear examples of the strong stakeholder relationships that were critical to the success of this accreditation. Presenters will illustrate how the Health Equity Accreditation Plus efforts can serve as an actionable framework to instill health equity concepts across an organization while prompting continuous improvement through examples of member-centric, clinically focused initiatives with evidence-based approaches to address social needs that impact health, quality and cost. Come hear from others who have been there!

Health Equity Accreditation Plus - November 9, 2023   

NCQA's Health Equity Accreditation Plus helps health care organizations that have implemented core Health Equity Accreditation activities establish processes and cross-sector partnerships that identify and address social risk factors in their communities and the social needs of the people they serve. This program highlights how Health Equity Accreditation Plus builds on these activities for organizations that are more advanced and have an ongoing commitment to health equity. 

There will be an opportunity to hear more about the Health Equity Accreditation Plus program and its requirements, and ask your questions live. 

Recordings of all live sessions will posted once the Live Webinar takes place. 

Self Paced:

Barriers and Opportunities in Engaging Data to Advance Health Equity for Providers and Payers

Health care organizations, both payers and providers, have significantly increased their focus on equity over the last two years with many organizations incorporating patient, community, and workforce equity goals into their strategic plans. Emerging CMS and NCQA policies and payment programs will continue this emphasis on reducing health disparities by both increasing accountability and creating incentives for closing equity gaps. Organizations are increasingly being expected to collect data on their patients, members, and providers—such as race, ethnicity, language spoken, sexual orientation and gender identity—and be held accountable for differences in care provided and health outcomes among these groups. For organizations to succeed under these new requirements, they need a framework for applying an equity lens to their patient and member experience and an understanding of the ROI of doing so. 

This presentation will share a comprehensive approach to bringing an equity lens to health outcomes data. It will begin with a review of the current state of administrative data to denote patient racial and ethnic identity. An assessment tool for reviewing administrative data will be shared to diagnose the presence, quality, and accuracy of patient and member self-report of race and ethnicity and best practices for data gathering will be discussed. To demonstrate the power of high-quality administrative data, patient experience and workforce outcomes will be segmented by race and ethnicity to show patterns of disparities across the industry. Similar national findings will be shared for member experience. We will address the barriers and opportunities for both payers and providers to employ effective strategies so they can engage their patient, member, and workforce data with the goal of advancing health equity.

Implementing a Community Referral Network in NYC   

To increase access to social needs resources, the Bureau of Equitable Health Systems (BEHS) at New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene implemented a community referral platform among organizations serving in neighborhoods with highest health disparities. Organizations include Community Based Organizations (CBOs) and healthcare organizations. The platform provides a robust digital resource directory that makes it easy to search for services and share lists of resources to clients and patients. Resources include but are not limited to food pantries, SNAP assistance, mental health counseling, tenant’s rights education, and immigration support. The platform also enables organizations to electronically send to and receive referrals from each other. As part of the implementation, the CBOs and healthcare organizations also receive support to build their capacity in closing referral loops and optimizing usage of the platform’s features. 

This presentation will describe lessons learned in building a network of CBOs and healthcare organizations utilizing a community referral platform.  We will discuss successful strategies in driving adoption including offsetting cost, technical assistance, partnership development, and identification of place-based resources. We will also discuss solutions to mitigate barriers that required significant attention to address such as organizational and staff buy-in, metric development and workflow planning.

Implementing Digital Health as a Health Equity and Population Health Strategy  

Many organizations are doing good work but it’s not penetrating the communities they want to serve. Organizations must understand specific population needs, empower communities and patients to be activists of their own health while advancing systems to create an environment of trust. During this learning activity we’ll examine how organizations can connect with women, pediatrics, underserved and LGBTQ+ communities and how to design solutions that achieve patients' personal goals while achieving the best possible outcomes with available resources. 

Learning Objectives:

After completing the Health Equity Subscription offerings, participants will be able to:

1. Recognize the latest updates and changes to NCQA’s Health Equity Accreditation and Health Equity Accreditation Plus programs.
2. Outline the fundamentals of delegation standards within Health Equity Accreditation.
3. Summarize best practices examples of care delivery and lessons learned that support an organization’s health equity goals.

Who Should Attend:

• Health Plans
• Health Systems 
• Hospitals
• Accountable Care Orgs
• Providers
• Managed Behavioral Healthcare Orgs 
• Population Health Orgs
• Wellness Orgs
• Leveragers in the Federal Government, States and Employers