Blog: Dialysis providers continue to challenge rating methodology

Oct 09

From: Modern Healthcare

By Sabriya Rice

Kidney-care providers are still battling methods used by the CMS to help dialysis patients evaluate quality at more than 5,500 U.S. treatment centers. The ratings are difficult to understand and are not consistent with other online public-rating systems, a technical expert panel said in a report released Tuesday.

The analysis comes as the providers await the release this month of the newest round of one- to five-star quality ratings, which are meant to summarize how well the facilities did on measures such as reducing hospitalizations, blood transfusion and deaths, among other concerns. In January, the CMS began publicly posting the stars on its Dialysis Facility Compare amid industry protests.

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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

By

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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