Happy Holidays! As I look back on 2025, I’m sincerely grateful for your ongoing partnership and collaboration in advancing healthcare in California. It’s been a year marked by uncertainty, from questions around the continuation of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies to controversial federal vaccine policy changes and public health funding cuts. Through these challenges, we’ve made remarkable progress, demonstrating the power of collaboration and a shared commitment to improving healthcare. I’m happy to share some of our key accomplishments with you:
Symphony Provider Directory
Symphony powers Covered California’s Shop and Compare platform In May 2025, the Symphony Provider Directory began powering Covered California’s Shop and Compare platform. All 12 Qualified Health Plans (QHPs), representing roughly 100,000 individual providers, are now live. One carrier noted a 40% increase in hospitals displayed as “in network”, and Symphony achieved 6 times more complete NPI fields, eliminating months of manual work for Covered California.
Availity 2.0 AWS Migration now live The completion of the AWS migration enhances security, scalability, implementation speed, and performance while paving the way for Symphony product innovations such as time-based data exchange.
New time-based data exchange capability Symphony’s new time-based data exchange capability is live, ensuring compliance with HR-133 with daily file delivery, enabling updates within two days of receiving corrections. This significantly improves data quality and update speed.
Regulatory and industry engagement In November, the Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) hosted an educational session on AB 280 with key stakeholders. Symphony was invited to present Symphony platform capabilities, provider engagement, and industry insights. Health Net and Sharp Rees-Stealy shared operational challenges that reinforce the importance of Symphony’s data solution.
Provider incentive program expands Building on the success of our 2025 launch, we're expanding the Symphony Provider Incentive Program in Measurement Year 2026. Health plans can include Symphony incentives as an optional add-on within IHA’s AMP program incentive design. Alternatively, health plans can work with us to create a new incentive offering that works within existing internal incentive payment structures. By minimizing participation costs, the program attracts more providers to Symphony, delivering improved data quality for both health plans and providers.
Recap of IHA’s CAHP Session:
Symphony is demonstrating success, data quality improvements
At the 2025 California Association of Health Plans Annual Conference, Symphony General Manager Jacqui Darcy moderated a panel, “State and National Efforts to Improve Provider Databases.” Panelists Doug McKeever (Covered California), Beth Andersen (Anthem), and David Mast (Providence Clinical Network) shared their experiences and insights in improving provider data accuracy, along with thoughts on the opportunities ahead for a potential federal solution. Panelists agreed that while implementation requires commitment and effort, the benefits and tangible results from having a single, reliable source of provider data are clear, and these learnings can be applied on a national scale. Many thanks to our panelists for the engaging and thought-provoking discussion.
AMP completes first measurement year with new program design MY 2024 marked the first year under the redesigned program, which reflects the industry-wide focus on healthcare quality and equity. The redesign introduced a streamlined measure set, the use of national benchmarks, and a higher-impact incentive design emphasizing quality, adjusted for total cost of care. We also incorporated AMP Medi-Cal Managed Care provider organizations into our recognition program this year, a significant milestone in our commitment to recognizing achievements across all populations. See the full list of AMP Commercial HMO and Medi-Cal Managed Care honorees at IHA.org.
New AMP insights reports support improvement efforts In 2025, IHA launched two new analytic insights reports to support AMP participants: theIHA Health Plan Performance Comparison Report and the AMP PO Stars Report. These reports provide AMP participants with valuable performance insights on key quality and cost measures in a single, accessible view, including peer comparisons and year-over-year trends. The reports equip stakeholders with actionable data to identify improvement opportunities, benchmark performance, and track progress over time. If you are an AMP health plan or provider organization and haven’t accessed your report, please contact Angela Czesnakowicz.
Looking ahead to 2026, we’ll launch a new primary care spend report for AMP participants. This resource will provide standardized measurement and reporting aligned with the California Office of Health Care Affordability’s (OHCA) methodology to support organizations working toward OHCA’s primary care spending targets.
Coming soon: Performance measurement brand refresh We are excited to share a refreshed brand for IHA’s Performance Measurement capabilities in early 2026. The objectives of the refresh include deepening stakeholder engagement, positioning the program for future growth, and reinforcing IHA as a trusted source of healthcare information. We’re looking forward to sharing more details in early 2026!
Encounter data improvement project successfully concludes After four years of dedicated work, IHA has successfully completed its encounter data improvement project with remarkable results. Highlights include:
Reached over 950,000 patients across 80 practices and community health centers through our Direct Training and Technical Assistance program.
Assessments conducted with the California Medical Association Physician Services Organization uncovered significant gaps in knowledge and submission quality, with a key finding that timeliness is crucial for encounter data performance; the faster encounter data is submitted, the more complete it becomes.
Celebrating our partnership with Chapman Consulting
Since 2019, Chapman Consulting has been an invaluable partner to IHA, providing specialized government affairs support that strengthens our statewide presence and advances key policy initiatives, especially in provider directory standards and performance measurement. Chapman has provided strategic policy and regulatory expertise to SB 923, AB 280, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ national provider directory efforts. On the performance measurement side, Chapman monitors healthcare legislation and offers guidance on statewide regulatory and purchaser priorities concerning quality, affordability, and health equity. We deeply value this longstanding partnership and Chapman’s dedication to supporting IHA’s mission.
May your holidays be bright
As we approach the new year, we want to express our sincere appreciation for your partnership and the meaningful progress we’ve achieved together. From all of us at IHA, we wish you and your loved ones a joyful holiday season and a healthy, peaceful 2026.
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