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Another delay of CMS hospital star ratings system

Accreditation Insider, October 10, 2017

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CMS will delay an update to its controversial hospital star rating system for the second time in four months. The update was expected to launch this month and the new setback means the tool might not be available to the public until 2018.

CMS told reporters that it needed more time “to continue its examination of potential changes to the Star Rating methodology based on public feedback.” Until CMS releases the update, the ratings from December 2016 will remain on the Hospital Compare website.

The star ratings are intended to provide patients with more transparency on hospital quality, and are based on seven different latent variable models. Hospital scores are calculated using 57 quality measures broken up into seven categories:
•    Mortality
•    Patient experience
•    Readmissions
•    Safety of care
•    Care effectiveness
•    Care timeliness
•    Efficient use of medical imaging

However, since the day it was proposed many hospitals and healthcare organizations have argued against the five-star system. Some argued it unfairly penalized hospitals with poorer or sicker patients, that the methodology it uses is flawed, and that patients’ perceptions aren’t the same as quality.
 

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