ALBANY, N.Y., November 26 – Three more health insurers have reached agreements with Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to adopt his Doctor Ranking Model, and New Yorks top legislative leaders will pass legislation to codify the model in order to protect consumers.

After previously announcing agreements with CIGNA Healthcare, Aetna, and Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cuomo recently announced agreements with United Healthcare, which includes Oxford Health Plans; Group Health Incorporated and Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York (GHI and HIP); and MVP Health Care, and its Rochester affiliate, Preferred Care.

Speaking for GHI, Dr. Aran Ron, president, said, A standard of measurement that is transparent and accurate and open to review by physicians and accrediting organizations is a solid foundation for any programs in the future. For this reason, even though we do not have a physician ranking program, we signed this agreement.

GHI and HIP believe that consumers must have access to accurate and useful information about their physicians, said Dr. Dan Dragalin, executive vice president and chief medical officer of HIP.

UnitedHealthcare said that it plans to launch a doctor ranking program known as UnitedHealth Premium designation program to consumers in New York in December, and the company has agreed to employ Cuomos model. This is good news for consumers who need information tools to help guide them through the health system and for physicians who deserve useful and accurate feedback, said Reed V. Tuckson, M.C., executive vice president and chief of medical affairs, UnitedHealth Group. We are please that our Premium designation program will embrace and comply with the core principles of the agreement, including the importance of transparency of information to consumers, physicians, and employers. We believe physician performance assessment programs play a key role in improving health care quality and cost efficiency.

MVP Health Care, a not-for-profit company with approximately 660,000 customers combined in New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire, is the most recent company to sign the agreement. MVP Health Care physicians reporting does not currently include physician rankings, but we have entered into this agreement with Attorney General Cuomo because we share his belief that consumers are entitled to receive accurate and reliable information upon which to make important health care decisions, said David W. Oliker, president and CEO of MVP Health Care.

This model provides transparency in the way ratings are created and ensures a level of independence by the inclusion of an oversight examiner reporting to the attorney general, said Dr. Robert Goldberg, president of the Medical Society of the State of New York. Doctors are well served by having major insurers in New York and nationwide adopting this model.

Cuomo said, Major insurers are lining up to embrace our national model for doctor rankings. This model is supported by both doctors and consumers and has become the industry standard.

He added, Every plan that had implemented, or was planning to implement, a doctor ranking program in New York State has agreed to our New York Doctor Ranking Model Code.

Cuomo also said, I applaud GHI and HIP for being the first insurers to preemptively accept our model before having any plans to design a program. As their commitment shows, insurers considering a program for rating doctors can and should use the national model as the foundation.

The Doctor Ranking Model Code reforms doctor ranking programs by compelling insurers to fully disclose to consumers and physicians all aspects of their ranking system, according to Cuomo. Also, under the model, the insurer must retain an oversight monitor, known as a Ratings Examiner (Rx), who will oversee compliance.

Under the Doctor Ranking Model Code, Cuomo said, insurers will:

Ensure that rankings for doctors are not based solely on cost and clearly identify the degree to which any ranking is based on cost;

Use established national standards to measure quality and cost efficiency, including measures endorsed by the National Quality Forum (NQF) and other generally accepted national standards;

Employ several measures to foster more accurate physician comparisons, including risk adjustment and valid sampling;

Disclose to consumers how the program is designed and how doctors are ranked, and provide a process for consumers to register complaints about the system;

Disclose to physicians how rankings are designed, and provide a process to appeal incorrect rankings;

Nominate and pay for the Rx who will oversee compliance with all aspects of the new ranking model.

Our Doctor Ranking Model Code, based on input from the nations leading physician and consumer advocacy groups, gives New Yorks consumers added protections and should encourage all insurers to adopt similar principles of accuracy, transparency, and oversight, said Cuomo. It is imperative that New Yorkers arent steered to certain preferred physicans based solely on cost, but instead have access to clear and meaningful measurements of quality of care to help them make well-informed decisions.

Legislation to codify the model in New York is planned, but has not been introduced yet. The legislation will be the first of its kind in the nation and will track Cuomos Doctor Ranking Model Code.

Consumers need all the information they can get to select doctors and make critical health care decisions, said Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno (R-Rensselaer). Cuomos model ranking program will enable patients to make informed decisions about their physicians to ensure a high quality of care. The Senate will work with the attorney general to enact his program into law.

In order to make smart decisions about their health care, it is absolutely essential for consumers to have adequate and accurate information, said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-New York). If health insurance providers do rankings of physicians, consumers must be confident that those rankings rate quality of care first. The legislation being proposed today takes the necessary steps to ensure that New Yorkers making critical medical decisions are doing so armed with reliable and useful data.