Emdeon to transfer U.S. Healthcare Efficiency Index ownership to CAQH

CAQH and Emdeon announced that they have reached an agreement for Emdeon to transfer ownership and management of the U.S. Healthcare Efficiency Index (USHEI) to CAQH.

The USHEI is an industry-wide outlet designed to track the transition from a paper- and phone-based healthcare system to an electronic one. Emdeon, a leading provider of healthcare revenue and payment cycle management and clinical information exchange solutions, created the USHEI in 2008 as an industry forum for monitoring business efficiency in healthcare.

"We believe CAQH is a perfect strategic home for the USHEI," said Miriam Paramore, senior vice president of clinical services for Emdeon in a press release. "For over a decade CAQH has championed proven healthcare simplification solutions that deliver quantifiable results. Under its stewardship, the USHEI can be expanded to provide a more comprehensive view of these results, including achievements that are being accelerated by the adoption of new transaction standards and operating rules contained in the healthcare reform law."

The USHEI provides a national reference to track and measure the adoption of electronic medical transactions including claims and payment. Today, only an estimated 40 percent of the approximately 13 billion administrative transactions conducted each year are conducted electronically. Completing the conversion from the current paper-based claims payments system to an electronic one is estimated to save more than $30 billion annually across the U.S. healthcare industry.

CAQH said it plans to add aggregated outcomes data from current CAQH sponsored initiatives, including the Committee on Operating Rules for Information Exchange (CORE), into the USHEI. The addition of this data will allow CAQH to offer a broader, more comprehensive analysis of the progress being made from paper-based transactions to electronic transactions.

"We are excited to build upon Emdeon's success and take the USHEI to the next level by drawing upon our experience in streamlining data collection and information exchange," said Robin Thomashauer, executive director of CAQH in a statement. "The inclusion of aggregated data from the CAQH initiatives will help to enhance the USHEI by clearly and continuously measuring the increasing efficiency of healthcare administration."

Information gathered and compiled in the USHEI is used by policymakers and regulators as a tool to help determine the effectiveness of initiatives that have been launched to simplify the administration of healthcare. More information about the USHEI can be found at www.ushealthcareindex.com.