Elevate your quality of care through performance measurement
Performance measurement is important to policy makers, payers, and industry stakeholders and the results increasingly significant for reimbursement. In this way, URAC’s measurement process helps organizations as they build and grow their business. In addition, the robust nature of our aggregated data enables URAC-accredited organizations to benchmark their performance in relation to others and see industry trends. URAC has collected measurement data since 2016 and requires measures in one third of our accreditation programs.
Measures selection is a continuous process at URAC. With our priority of consumer protection and empowerment, our measurement efforts focus on outcome measures, composite measures and flexible of measures collection.
The selection process includes an environmental scan, literature review, public comment, focus groups, expert opinions and reviews by URAC Advisory Groups and Committees. Selected measures align with URAC's Quality Domains. Specific URAC accreditation programs require ongoing monitoring and reporting of quality measures.
Please select a topic below to learn more about the measures process.
Review as soon as possible so you can prepare your systems to collect performance measurement data for your first reporting period
Measures collection (Year 2)
Starting January 1, collect the data required for your accreditation program
Data validation (Year 3)
Depending on your program, collected data may need independent validation by a URAC-approved data validation vendor prior to submission
Validation must be done in the same year the data is expected to be reported
Measures submission (Year 3)*
Submit your data (from the previous calendar year) during the measures submission period of July 1-September 30
Measures submission is required every year your organization maintains accreditation
*Pharmacy accreditation programs require validation of measures data before submission to URAC. Validation ensures data accuracy, and enables reporting to draw reliable comparisons between organizations. Health plan programs must follow CMS requirements for auditing.
Organizations report measures annually. The calendar year following the year that your program becomes URAC accredited is your first measurement period. You’ll collect measurement data for the year. The reporting period for that data begins the next calendar year on July 1 and ends on September 30. You’ll be required to report measures data during this period. Your organization will continue to report measures each year the accreditation is active. Failure to report measures jeopardizes an accreditation's status.
For this step, your organization selects an independent URAC-approved data validation vendor. We suggest having your contract in place by March 31 of your reporting year(s) to be ready for the measures submission period. *Please note that Data Validation is required for pharmacy programs only.
Pharmacy accreditation programs require validation of measures data before submission to URAC. Health plan programs must follow CMS requirements for auditing. You will submit your measures data to URAC through a secure, web-based URAC measures tool. (Please note measures are not submitted via AccreditNet.)
Data validation services are currently offered by five URAC-approved vendors. Click here to download information on these vendors in PDF format.
URAC Pharmacy clients may select and contract with any of the URAC-approved data validation vendors. Direct links to each of their websites are available by clicking on the vendor names below:
Benchmarking provides you with a path to quality improvement – whether through refining processes, upgrading your systems or undertaking other actions that will improve outcomes. Likewise, data validation is conducted in a collaborative educational way to help organizations improve existing practices leading to continuous quality improvement.
URAC promotes quality patient care and improved outcomes by development of standards and the measurement of validated performance data.
