An introduction to the National Committee for Quality Assurance.

The corporations that purchase private health benefits and the public payers, Medicare and Medicaid, are insisting increasingly that managed care plans be publicly accountable for the quality of care and service delivered. NCQA has responded to that demand with programs that assess both the organization and operation of the plan and the results that the plan actually achieves. Although our capacity to evaluate managed care is still incomplete, an increasingly complete picture of quality in managed care is emerging. We see evidence already that the capacity is driving improvement, and we hope that our work will mean that practicing physicians will find themselves better able to deliver the highest quality care possible to children in America.