Quality of Care for Patients with Hepatitis C Infection

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, as part of its Physician Quality Reporting Initiative, previously proposed quality indicators for managing patients infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV): confirmation of HCV viremia, hepatitis A and B vaccination, receipt of antiviral therapy, testing of genotype and viral load before treatment, and testing for viral load 12 weeks into therapy.

Using this rubric, researchers retrospectively assessed the quality of HCV care among 10,385 patients (mean age, 48; 60% men; 18% with cirrhosis) who had medical claims associated with an HCV laboratory test from 2003 through 2006. Records were accessible from a database of 40 million people managed by a large U.S. health insurance carrier. The number of …