Grading Hospital Report Cards (Again)

By MICHAEL MILLENSON Medicare recently delayed a plan to issue a simple “star” rating of individual hospitals’ care after 60 senators and 225 House members signed letters supported by major industry groups that questioned Medicare’s methodology. Rick Pollack, president and chief executive officer of the American Hospital Association (AHA), hailed the hiatus and pledged to make ratings more “useful and helpful for patients.” Perhaps. But while a summary grade for care quality has never fit hospitals—where the orthopedists could have a leg up on competitors, while the cardiac surgeons’ results are disheartening—it’s also true that hospitals have consistently fought attempts at transparency. Over an astonishing stretch of almost 100 years, they’ve done so crudely (burning the results of the first national quality survey in a hotel furnace to keep them from the press), through the courts (suing to prevent release of infection data), and using political clout. Nonetheless, if the hospital groups that sought this delay—the AHA, the Association of American Medical Colleges, America’s Essential Hospitals, and the Federation of American Hospitals—truly seek to sever the industry from its self-protective past, they don’t have to wait for government. As the Medicare Access & CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) accelerates the move to value-based payment, there are significant actions hospitals could take to build a better report card right now. Ro...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs