Fighting for Fairness

Sep 29

From: Maryland Hospital Association

by Carmela Coyle

Here’s the issue: CMS’ star quality rankings for hospitals do not account for the unique way Maryland’s hospitals report data. Maryland’s hospitals operate under a more stringent quality program, but historically were not required to submit certain inpatient and outpatient data or present-on-admission codes to CMS until 2014. As a result, Maryland’s hospitals appear to lag on quality measures when in fact, the problem is that the playing field isn’t level. And with more national publications, like U.S. News & World Report, relying on CMS data for their own hospital rankings, the flawed rankings gain even greater exposure.

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AHA: Hospital Quality Star Rating System Needs Improvement – RevCycleIntelligence

Sep 22

AHA submitted comments to CMS regarding the Hospital Quality Star Rating System, stating that it needs improvements in collecting data used to determine ratings

Source: AHA: Hospital Quality Star Rating System Needs Improvement – RevCycleIntelligence

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CMS star ratings lack vital socioeconomic, demographic factors, hospital groups say

Sep 16

From: FierceHealthcare

America’s Essential Hospitals, Association of American Medical Colleges urge agency to add data on vulnerable patients

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Medicare’s five-star scale that rates the quality of care provided at hospitals doesn’t offer a complete picture because it fails to reflect the distinct socioeconomic and demographic factors of vulnerable patients, according to hospital advocacy groups.

America’s Essential Hospitals and the Association of American Medical Colleges have urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in recent weeks to add the income-related information into its ranking calculations. The star-rating system, unveiled this spring, uses patient satisfaction data from the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey to determine the scores.

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HOW ACCURATE ARE MEDICARE’S NURSING HOME RATINGS?

Sep 11

From: BNA Health Care Blog

by Michael Williamson

According to an industry group, the nursing home ratings aren’t very accurate at all.

Greg Crist, senior vice president at the American Health Care Association (AHCA), a nursing home trade group, told me Aug. 27 that the rating system used on the Nursing Home Compare website became riddled with errors after the CMS made changes to it in February. The Nursing Home Compare tool is a public website consumers can use to search for and compare nursing homes. The site features a five-star rating system, which evaluates nursing homes’ performance on health inspections, staffing and quality measures.

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