OPM Sets New Standards for FEHB Carriers

The FEHB carriers would now have to give a better proof of their performance. OPM is planning to add in several new evaluation measures. This was announced by Beth Cobert, who is the acting OPM Director. The agency also wants to ensure that the FEHB is available to all employees, its costs are kept minimal and the FEHB carriers ensure adequate cyber security.

Why is OPM increasing the Evaluation Measures?

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OPM is will start using 19 new measures to evaluate the performance of carriers that are related to the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program. The agency is boosting up the evaluation metrics as a vital part of its Performance Assessment Plan for FEHBP carriers. It is worthy to mention that this new plan will be implemented for the first time. The Announcement was made by Cobert when she was addressing the annual FEHB Carrier Conference in Arlington, Virginia on Thursday.

The Interrelated Success

Cobert also pointed out that the performance of the carrier would be judged by how they perform on the measures and their margins would also be directly affected by it. The agency also aims to judge its own performance on the basis of the success achieved by the carriers. The report regarding these new steps would be submitted to the Office of Management and Budget and the results of the report would be made available on Performance.gov.

The Key Metrics

The key metrics that measures the performance of a carrier are the optimum utilization of resources by a carrier, quality of the clinics and the customer service. OPM focuses on three other measures, blood pressure control, prenatal care and reduction in hospital re-admissions.

The Targets

The key targets that need to be focused upon by the OPM are to ensure that FEHB is made inclusive, the carriers have enough cyber security and the carriers keep the costs low. The first target is vital for the agency as it helps in attracting more people to federal jobs and retaining them. A 2015 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey has revealed that nearly 78 percent of employees think that the FEHB availability impacts their decision to keep their federal job.

The second target will help OPM to get away from the bad publicity earned by two cyber breaches that occurred last year and made that data of millions of people vulnerable. The third target would assist the OPM to attain short term and long term savings for the FEHB Program.