Racial And Ethnic Differences In The Attainment Of Behavioral Health Quality Measures In Medicare Advantage Plans

As the Medicare population becomes more diverse and its demand for behavioral health care grows, a better understanding of racial/ethnic disparities in the quality of behavioral health care is crucial. Medicare Advantage (MA) plans are accountable through the public reporting of quality performance on measures, including the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS). We examined HEDIS data on eight MA behavioral health care quality measures, using mixed-effects logistic regressions to distinguish racial/ethnic differences within and between MA health plans. We found that performance differed across racial/ethnic groups by more than 10 percentage points on most quality measures. Significant within-plan disparities were found in twenty of twenty-four comparisons of racial/ethnic minority groups with whites. Within-plan disparities varied widely across plans, with performance being equivalent across racial/ethnic groups in some plans and widely divergent in others. Unlike other types of medical care, in behavioral health within-plan quality disparities are prominent in MA plans, which suggests a role for stratified reporting by racial/ethnic group.