URAC Gives Final Approval to Revised Health Plan/Health Network Standards

The URAC Board of Directors has given its blessing to the latest revision of URAC's Health Plan and Health Network standards.  While the standards won't make their way into Interpretive Guide form until late in Q1 or early Q2 2009, we do have a sense of some of the changes. 

Of particular interest to some of our clients will be the good news that the long, painful struggle over provider dispute resolution seems to have been resolved by this iteration (click here for a history of the issue).  As readers of this blog may recall, I submitted commentary and suggested changes to URAC's provider dispute resolution standards during the public commentary phase (click here for the full post and the suggested language).  Apparently, URAC has adopted this approach with a few modest improvements. 

The new standards, applicable to HMOs, PPOs, and/or PHOs, will be paired with the new Core 3.0 standards, about which we'll be writing in some detail over the next couple of months.  We gave you previews as to some of the key changes in Core 3.0 in our reporting from the URAC Summit back in October (click here for the first in that series of reports), but you'll have the full scoop later this winter.

Stay tuned.  There's lots of fresh news out of URAC, and we'll give you the details of the changes URAC has made i 2008 -- URAC's busiest year ever -- right here.  If you haven't already done so, please subscribe so you don't miss out on a thing.  Unsubscribe at any time, if you find yourself no longer needing to know the latest analysis out of URAC.