23
June
2018
|
07:00 AM
America/New_York

Hospitals see long road ahead in improving CMS star ratings

Modern Healthcare reported that CMS delayed its star ratings after hospitals raised concerns about the methodology.

The star ratings rely on hospitals' performance on 57 quality measures. HSS chief value medical officer Catherine H. MacLean, MD, PhD, said she doesn't think those are the right measures to be using.

According to Dr. MacLean, the measures apply to different conditions which make for an "apples to oranges comparison".

"We are going to have to get more measures, good measures. The problem isn't that there are too many measures, it's that they are bad measures. It's time to step back and reassess how we are going to do this," Dr. MacLean said.

Additionally, the article reported that the star ratings for hospitals drastically changed between December 2017 to July 2018.

"When you are tampering with the model, it shouldn't change the results a whole lot. It speaks to an underlying lack of stability. Little differences shouldn't shift the results dramatically, one would hope," said Mark Fontana, senior director of data science at HSS.

Read the full article at modernhealthcare.com [subscription required]. This also appeared in the June 23, 2018 print issue.