Evaluating health plan quality 2: Survey design principles for measuring health plan quality

Objective: To develop principles for measuring the quality of specific health plans from a physician's perspective. Study design: Literature review, expert review, cognitive interviews. Methods: We did a literature review on the use of physician surveys about managed care to determine the contributions and weaknesses of those surveys. Then, an expert review of prior survey efforts to measure health plan quality from the physician's perspective was performed. Results: A survey instrument based on a conceptual model of health plan quality was developed. Its purpose was to measure health plan quality from the physician's perspective. Principles for surveying physicians guided the structure of the survey. Conclusion: Survey instruments can be designed to take into account a physician's unique perspective on health plan quality and can include measures that control for potential biases such as anti-managed care bias.