URAC Releases Standards and Measures for Wellness Programs for Publ...(and education and communications aspects...),Health

-- Evaluation: Focuses on how the wellness organization calculates, measures, and reports participant progress and overall clinical and financial program success to the client; and

-- Integration: Focuses on an organization's ability and willingness to coordinate with other organizations, operations, and programs already in place.

-- Measurement: Focuses on producing and reporting on a specified set of performance measures as part of internal performance improvement, reporting to purchasers and public reporting.

URAC's Focused Wellness Accreditation includes Core Organizational Quality and three areas of focus for organizations offering services to support health promotion and risk reduction across a narrower spectrum of behavioral health or physical health characteristics.

"URAC has historically worked in the health care management sector to assist employer purchasers in their effort to purchase efficient, effective services," Spielman said. "We have also been a champion for the consumer with our HIPAA Privacy and HIPAA Security accreditation programs and our overall emphasis on consumer empowerment and protection. Now URAC is taking a new leadership role in assisting organizations to demonstrate they meet standards for what has become an important component of the overall employer health benefit strategy."

The Wellness Accreditation draft standards are available for review at http://www.urac.org/publiccomment/. URAC will only accept comments through this online comment form. After the comment period, the committee will make recommended changes to the draft standards and measures, which will then undergo Beta testing and evaluation. Final Wellness Accreditation standards and measures are expected for release in December.
Organizations represented on the advisory committee are:

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