The Maryland Health Care Commission (MHCC) recently released its 11th annual Measuring the Quality of Maryland HMOs and POS Plans: 2007/2008 Performance Report. You can download the entire report here.

The report rates the seven Maryland HMO/POS health plan providers, Aetna, CareFirst BlueChoice, CIGNA, Coventry Health Care, Inc., Kaiser Permanente, M.D. Individual Practice Associates (M.D. IPA) and OCI, in overall service delivery and in individual service categories such as preventative care, chronic care, and behavioral health care.

The report is based on information from member medical records and health plan members’ responses to an independent survey relaying their opinions about the care they received while enrolled in the plans. New measurement information added to this year’s report rates the health plans in five additional categories: consumer engagement, preventive care, disease management, prescription management, and behavioral health care. This information was gathered using eValue8 TM, a tool developed by the National Business Coalition on Health.

In 2008, Preferred Provider Organizations or PPOs, also will be included in the report. These plans nationally enroll about three times as many people as HMOs.