On August 1, 2024, the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) released accreditation standards for Virtual Primary Care and Urgent Care. The standards address the structural components of virtual care delivery, such as care coordination between clinical professionals and care settings, tracking outcomes, and identifying gaps and opportunities to improve.
The standards are intended for both hybrid and virtual-first entities. The Virtual Care Accreditation is for organizations that offer virtual primary care and virtual urgent care services. Organizations can pursue accreditation for primary care or urgent care, or can pursue simultaneous accreditation for both.
In November 2023, NCQA launched a 10-month pilot Virtual Care Accreditation program. For the pilot, NCQA selected a diverse set of 18 entities from the more than 100 that applied. The pilot organizations are located in 12 states and Puerto Rico. They included health plans, health systems, Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC), patient-centered medical homes, and virtual first/virtual only organizations.
The pilot participants included:
- Two payers: Aetna Better Health of Virginia and Blue Shield of California
- Two health systems: ChristianaCare Health System—The Center for Virtual Health and Lehigh Valley Physicians Group
- One consumer-centered medical home: Union Health Center
- Four FQHCs: Beaufort Jasper Hampton Comprehensive Health Services, Inc.; Institute for Family Health; Migrant Health Center Western Region, Inc.; and Zufall Health Center.
- Seven virtual-only provider organizations: CirrusMD, Curai, Everly Health, Firely Health, HubMD PC, MDLIVE, and Privia Virtual Health, LLC
Early versions of the pilot focused on primary care and urgent care. Later versions will provide opportunities for organizations to distinguish themselves for other kinds of care they deliver virtually. Likely options include behavioral health care, and acute, post-acute or specialty care. The goal was to learn, test, prepare, and evaluate the standards. After evaluating the pilot outcomes, NCQA intended to launch an early adopter program and to launch the Virtual Care Accreditation.
NCQA is a private, non-profit organization that accredits and certifies a wide range of health care organizations with the goal of improving health care quality. It also recognizes clinicians and practices in key areas of performance. NCQA’s Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS®) is a widely used health care performance measurement tool.
The full text of “2024 Virtual Primary Care and Urgent Care Standards and Guidelines” for organizations enrolling as of July 31, 2024, and later can be purchased at https://store.ncqa.org/recognition/virtual-care-vc.html (accessed August 15, 2024).
For more information, contact: National Committee for Quality Assurance, 1100 13th Street Northwest, Third Floor, Washington, District of Columbia 20005; 202-955-3500; Fax: 202-955-3599 Email: NCQA@shiftcomm.com; Website: https://www.ncqa.org/about-ncqa/contact-us/
November 2024 00US24EUA0065