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UPMC Health Plan Is Highest Ranked in Pennsylvania

PITTSBURGH (March 8, 2006) - UPMC Health Plan was the highest ranked health plan in Pennsylvania, based on information compiled by the National Committee for Quality Assurance.

The ranking is a restatement of a list that was published last October by U.S. News and World Report. The magazine used NCQA data to compile and publish a list of America's Best Health Plans. On March 2, NCQA conceded that errors resulted in inaccurate rankings as published in the magazine.

The restatement also resulted in UPMC Health Plan being ranked 20th in the nation. More than 257 companies were ranked.

"We recently discovered an error in the complex calculations used to develop the rankings for the Best Health Plans project," NCQA said in a statement. "We want to emphasize that this error originated with NCQA and not U.S. News."

NCQA said it erred in placing too little weight on clinical measures such as the rate of members in a health plan who received diabetic eye exams, the rate of children receiving immunizations, or the rate of women receiving mammograms.

The top plans were determined by measures established by the Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set (HEDIS). HEDIS is a set of standardized performance measures designed to ensure that purchasers and consumers have the information they need to reliably compare the performance of managed health care plans.

"We were pleased to see how highly we ranked in October, including being ranked #1 in the nation for breast cancer screening," said Diane P. Holder, president of UPMC Health Plan. "Now, as the highest-ranked health plan in Pennsylvania and a top-20 health plan nationally, we're even more convinced that our employees and network physicians are providing exceptional service and care to our members."

Rankings for UPMC for You, the Health Plan's Medical Assistance product, did not change. UPMC for You continues it exceptional ranking of No. 5 nationally.

The U.S. News & World Report rankings are available at http://www.usnews.com/usnews/health/best-health-insurance/topplans.htm.

NCQA is an independent, not-for-profit organization that evaluates managed care organizations. NCQA analyzes HEDIS data from hundreds of commercial health plans to compile annual rankings.

Reporters with questions about the error or NCQA's methodology can contact Barry Scholl, NCQA's vice president, Communications and Marketing, at 202-955-5197, or scholl@ncqa.org.

About UPMC Health Plan
UPMC Health Plan, a leading health care benefits company located in Western Pennsylvania, is backed by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), one of the nation's top-ranked health systems. As part of an integrated health care delivery system, UPMC Health Plan partners with UPMC to improve clinical outcomes as well as the health of the greater community. The National Committee for Quality Assurance and U.S. News & World Report listed UPMC Health Plan as the top ranked health plan in Pennsylvania, and one of the top 20 health plans in the United States. The Health Plan is the only Pennsylvania plan to receive five stars in the categories of "Prevention" and "Treatment," and is the highest-ranked managed care company in the nation for breast cancer screening, for the second consecutive year. The UPMC Insurance Services Division - which includes UPMC Health Plan, UPMC for You (Medical Assistance), Community Care Behavioral Health, and EAP Solutions - serves over 700,000 members through a network that includes UPMC providers as well as affiliated hospitals and physicians, totaling more than 80 hospitals and more than 7,000 physicians in a 28-county region.

Contact: Michael Taylor, 412-454-7534

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