Do employers know the quality of health care benefits they purchase? Factors related to employer knowledge of HEDIS depression scores for health plans

Abstract

Because employers select the health plans they offer to their employees, this paper examined the dissemination of mental health care quality measures to 325 employers interested in improving depression treatment to determine their knowledge of HEDIS scores for depression. Only 7% of employers reported knowledge of these scores for their primary health plan. Because larger employers were more likely to report knowing the scores, 53% of all employees worked at employers who reported knowing the scores. A number of structural, health benefit, and need characteristics predicted knowledge of HEDIS depression scores by employers. Our study qualifies the literature to date by demonstrating that motivated employers do not know their depression HEDIS scores even when their plan publicly reports them. Measures of health care quality are not reaching the buyers of insurance products; however, larger employers are more likely to know the HEDIS scores for their health plan, suggesting that consumer driven health care may have some ability to impact health care quality.