CMS Should Boost the Signal on Social Determinants of Health

By HERB KUHN  Historically, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) stance on the influence that social determinants of health (SDOH) have on health outcomes has been equal parts signal and noise. In April 2016, the agency announced it would begin adjusting the Medicare Advantage star ratings for dual-eligibility and other social factors. This was amid calls for increased equity in the performance determinations from the managed care industry. At the same time, CMS continued to refuse risk-adjustment for SDOH in the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) despite the research supporting the influence of these factors on the HRRP. It wasn’t until Congress interceded with the 21st Century Cures Act that CMS conceded to adjusting for dual-eligibility under the new stratified approach to determining HRRP penalties beginning in fiscal year 2019. The new methodology compares hospital readmission performance to peers within the same quintile of dual-eligible payer mix. The debate surrounding the adjustment of incentive-based performance metrics for SDOH likely is to continue, as many feel stratification is a step in the right direction, albeit a small one. And importantly, the Cures Act includes the option of direct risk-adjustment for SDOH, as deemed necessary by the Secretary of Health and Humans Services. SDOH are defined as “the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age.”  The multidimensional nature of SDOH reach far beyond p...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Health Policy Hospitals CMS Herb Kuhn HRRP Social Determinants of Health Source Type: blogs