Understanding the Provider Risk Score Report

The Provider Risk Score report was initially designed by the Wisconsin Balance of State Continuum of Care for use in measuring the impact of each of their funded projects. The history of the Provider Risk Score and details regarding how it was developed and how it is calculated are available in this article (pdf). This guide is designed to provide only a very brief summary of how the guide is utilized within the Missouri HMIS implementation, and we encourage those who are interested in learning more to read the article (pdf).

Report Need-to-Know
Who runs this report?	ICA, as the HMIS Lead Agency.
Can agencies run this report?	Not at this time. Only ICA can run this report at a CoC/community level.
Who gets this report?	Upon request, ICA provides this report to committees and task forces that oversee program performance. ICA typically needs at least one to two weeks notice to provide the report, but this can vary based upon current reporting workload.

Frequently Asked Questions

What impacts the Provider Risk Score?

The Provider Risk Score is calculated using five different risk factors which have been shown to be barriers for clients in obtaining and maintaining housing. All five of these factors are collected within the HMIS for all CoC-funded projects, which allows for the score to be generated using HMIS data:

Chronic homelessness at project start
Prior residence of a "place not meant for habitation"
A history of alcohol or drug abuse
A mental health problem
A lack of income at project start

For more details on how these five criteria were selected, you can refer to the original article (pdf).

What is the intent of the Provider Risk Score?

The Provider Risk Score is utilized in some CoCs within Missouri in order to help "level the playing field" between different CoC-funded projects during the annual CoC competition. It provides a score which allows the CoC to see what barriers the program's clients were facing at project entry. This allows a project that served clients with substantial and numerous barriers at project start to demonstrate that the outcomes they achieved took more work on the project's part compared to another project where the clients entered with very few, if any, barriers.

How is the Provider Risk Score calculated?

The risk score is calculated by looking at each individual client in the program and their status for each of the five criteria above. For each of the criteria above that a client meets, they receive two points. If a client meets only one of the criteria above, they receive two points. If a client does not meet any of the criteria, they receive 0 points, and if a client meets all five criteria, they receive 10 points. The total points of all clients within the project are then added together and divided by the number of clients in the program. The outcome is the risk score, which may be scaled depending upon the request of the CoC requesting the data.

The full calculation, and the steps utilized to develop it, are available within the article. A simplified version of the calculation is provided here for reference:

What is a "good" Provider Risk Score?

There's not necessarily a "good" Provider Risk Score, but generally the higher the score, the more points a project will receive during the annual CoC competition. The score is intended to allow the annual CoC competition to provide a "boost" to those projects who end up serving clients with more barriers since their outcomes may not be as good as another project who serves clients with fewer barriers.

What can a project do to increase their Provider Risk Score?

A project is not really able to increase (or decrease) their Provider Risk Score, as it is calculated based upon the client status at project entry. By accepting clients through coordinated entry, agencies will likely see a higher Provider Risk Score because the clients who are at the top of the prioritization list will likely score higher on the Provider Risk Score.

How can a project make sure their Provider Risk Score is accurate?

A project should review their data quality on a regular basis to ensure their Provider Risk Score is accurately generated. While data quality across the board is vitally important, the items listed above will impact the Provider Risk Score, so ensuring those are accurate will ensure the project has an accurate risk score calculated.