Promoting consistent clinical preventive services guidelines among competing health plans.

Clinicians are confronted with various and often conflicting sets of practice guidelines that direct provision of preventive care. This conflict among guidelines is detrimental to the delivery of preventive care and creates a major barrier to improving these services. This study used a systematic approach to reach consensus among health plan medical directors on clinical preventive services (CPS) guidelines. A consistent set of 17 CPS guidelines was identified that all health plans could endorse as being a priority for implementation. This approach provides a template for competing health plans nationwide to reach consensus on guidelines that support clinicians in the delivery of CPS.