Benchmarking HIV Quality Measures Across US Payer Types

Abstract

Despite advances in antiretroviral therapy (ART), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) remains a significant issue in the United States. Early diagnosis, continuous treatment access/adherence, and long-term care engagement help patients benefit fully from ART; however, a shortfall in care engagement remains, potentially leading to poorer health outcomes. This analysis benchmarks rates of health care quality and process measures to identify areas for improvement. This retrospective, claims-based, real-world cohort study assessed the percentage of prevalent (existing) and incident (newly diagnosed) patients with HIV with commercial or public health insurance meeting 4 National Quality Forum (NQF)-endorsed, 1 Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA), and 3 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) measures over a 4-year period. Most prevalent patients consistently met the NQF-endorsed prescribed ART and gaps in visits measures. Longer-term visit frequency measure rates were well below the 90% Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS target. Proportion of prevalent patients meeting each NQF-endorsed measure was maintained/increased with increasing age in 2015-2016. Substantially fewer incident patients than prevalent patients met NQF-endorsed measures across all measurement periods, particularly for visit frequency (32%-51%). PQA ART adherence was low (36%-73%). CDC receipt of care rates were high (83%-92%), whereas retention in care rates were low (67%-72%) among prevalent patients. For incident patients, linkage to care rates were consistently low (21%-44%). This study benchmarks current US HIV care engagement and highlights the need for improvement in early care engagement, ART adherence and long-term retention of care among patients with HIV.