HMO Quality Ratings Distorted, Study Finds

Health-maintenance organizations that withhold poor performance ratings are distorting results of a system that compares the quality of U.S. health-care plans, researchers said.

A review found that a quarter to a half of health plans that gave their scores to the National Committee for Quality Assurance in the late 1990s didn’t make them public the next year. Those with the worst rankings were as much as five times more likely to withhold results the following year.

“It’s misleading the American public into believing the quality of HMO care is a lot better than it actually is,” said Steffie Woolhandler, a researcher and associate professor at Harvard Medical School.