California, Walgreens team up in HMO consumer education effort - Chain Pharmacy

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California is ready to begin distribution of new 2002 HMO Report Cards to consumers at the 326 Walgreens locations statewide. The report cards provide comparison ratings of 10 California health maintenance organizations and 81 physicians groups.

For now, the report cards will be distributed at Walgreens and at 60-plus independently owned pharmacies in Los Angeles County that are members of the United Pharmacists Network Inc., a Southern California regional pharmacy association.

The state's patient advocate, who was appointed by the governor, said he has been contacted by representatives from Wal-Mart about distribution. Wal-Mart officials will study the report cards and their distribution at Walgreens to determine whether they might also distribute the report card, according to the patient advocate, Dr. Martin Gallegos.

Gallegos added he is hopeful other drug retailers in California will begin distributing the reports. "Anyone who would like to participate is welcome," he said. "The more the merrier. We are trying to get this information to 18 million California consumers."

Gallegos was appointed to his post within the state's Business, Transportation and Housing Agency by California Gov. Gray Davis in 2000. Gallegos said the Walgreens report card distribution was to begin with his planned Oct. 17 Sacramento news conference with Phil Burgess, Walgreens' national director of pharmacy affairs. Burgess is coordinating distribution of the cards for the chain. This is the first time the California HMO report card, just released Oct. 1 in its second annual version, will be distributed to the public through a pharmacy chain.

Both Gallegos and Michael Polzin, a spokesman for Walgreens, stressed that the pharmacy chain is strictly performing a distribution service, with no involvement in the content, or the conclusions, of the report cards. Asked whether Walgreens would review the contents of the cards before making them available to Walgreens customers, Polzin said: "We are simply a distribution point. We have agreed with the patient advocate to distribute the report cards, and we will do so. Questions about the content of the cards will be referred to the state California."

Polzin said the reports will be on pharmacy counters in the pharmacy, and it will be the customer's decision whether to take one.

Polzin added that Walgreens has "no intention" of distributing to its customers any evaluation forms that might be used in the compilation of future report cards.

The report cards, the first in the country to be prepared by a state government, according to Gallegos, are prepared by analyzing "consumer satisfaction surveys, as well as classic quality control data under clinical review." The patient advocate said HMOs and physicians groups report their "medical quality data" to the Pacific Business Group on Health, a clearinghouse. Once the data has been processed at PBGH, the results, in the form of "standardized industry reporting," are sent to California's Department of Managed Health are or auditing and review before being released for public distribution.

The first 2001 edition of California's HMO report card, said Gallegos, was released in the fourth quarter of last year. In addition to many non-retail distribution points, the report was available to customers at the counters of 61 independently owned pharmacies in Los Angeles County that are members of the UPNI network.

With the first-year distribution primarily through public and private health clinics, according to Gallegos, about 200,000 of the 2001 report cards were distributed.

New to the report card program this year, in addition to the Walgreens retail distribution, is the separate report card for 81 California physicians groups, an expansion of the continuing study of the 10 largest HMOs in the state.

The 81 medical groups will be given scores in four categories, including: "overall rating, getting treatment and specialty care," "communicating with patients" and "timely care and service."

The 10 HMOs graded on the report cards, according to the patient advocate, serve more than 90 percent of the consumer HMO enrollees in California. They are being given grades in five categories, including: "staying healthy," which covers immunizations, screenings and pre-and postnatal care; "getting better," which includes mental health, post-heart attack and smoking-cessation treatment; "living with illness," which covers services for chronic illnesses; "doctor communication and services," which covers providers' communications, appointment waiting time and enrollees' overall satisfaction; and "plan service," which covers access to primary care, specialty referrals, claims payment and customer service.

Gallegos said he plans to have representatives from his department visit Waigreens locations to check that they are stocked with the HMO and physicians group report cards in three languages: English, Spanish and Chinese. The physicians group cards are produced as a 20-page booklet on glossy stock, with a brightly colored cover. "Our understanding is the booklets will be in plastic holders on pharmacy counters," the patient advocate said.

David Breslow, a former pharmacist and current executive director of the 1,000-member UPNI, has had 61 Los Angeles-area member locations distribute the firstyear HMO report cards over the last year. He said the reports generated little, if any, reaction from either consumers or participating pharmacies. "The reports have not been a conversation piece," Breslow said. "It was not a big deal. It was a public service. I would like to think some people have used [the report cards] to make informed decisions on where to go for their health care."

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