Benchmarking is a quality improvement strategy used by some health plans.

cost-based benchmarking reveals why some areas of a health plan perform better or worse than comparable areas of other organizations

diagnosis-related groups (DRGs) are a source of benchmarking data that describe individual procedures and cover both inpatient and outpatient care

patient billing records provide a much more accurate account of procedure costs for benchmarking than do current procedural terminology (CPT) codes

the focus of benchmarking for health plan has shifted from identifying the lowest cost practices to identifying best practices