About MBHO Accreditation

The National Committee for Quality Assurance's (NCQA's) Managed Behavioral Health Accreditation Program is based on our experience as the nation's leading accrediting body for health plans. The program provides important quality information about managed behavioral health care organizations (MBHOs) to employers, health plans and consumers to promote quality improvement. NCQA developed its Behavioral Health Accreditation Standards with the input of all affected stakeholders - consumers, employers, policy makers, health plans, managed behavioral healthcare organizations and providers.

The rapid proliferation and growth of MBHOs spurred the demand for objective criteria by which these organizations can be measured. During the 1980s, employers, unions and consumer groups became increasingly concerned about the escalating cost of behavioral health services. MBHOs emerged in an attempt to control these costs and meet the demand for behavioral health care services and the industry has since grown rapidly. Currently, there are 300 MBHOs covering more than 120 million Americans.

300 MBHOs have focused most of their efforts on meeting the needs of the commercial market. However, as public purchasers are increasingly seeking managed care contracts, the size of the potential market for managed behavioral health has grown considerably.

Given the size of the market, and the need for national measures for quality and accountability, consumers, employers, public purchasers, and the managed behavioral health care industry itself are highly interested in the availability and use of NCQA behavioral health accreditation standards to assess and differentiate the quality of MBHOs in the market.

NCQA's Managed Behavioral Health Accreditation Program is designed to:

• Foster accountability among MBHOs for the quality of care and service their members receive
• Provide employers, public purchasers, plans and consumers with meaningful information regarding MBHOs
• Strengthen MBHO systems for population-based continuous quality improvement (CQI) programs
• Encourage effectiveness in the provision of behavioral health care by addressing the need for prevention, early intervention and coordination of behavioral health with medical care

By encouraging the adoption of Continuous Quality Improvement-based management systems, NCQA standards strengthen clinical decision making and foster the development of more effective managed behavioral health care delivery systems. NCQA's Managed Behavioral Health Accreditation Program represents an important and timely step toward making managed behavioral health care plans more accountable for the quality of care and service they provide.

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