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