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Medicare News
Hospital Compare Website Helps Medicare
Beneficiaries Learn More About Local Hospitals
Latest expansion in growing list of consumer Websites
by CMS
 March
31, 2008 – For the first time, Medicare consumers have the three
critical elements - quality information, patient satisfaction survey
information, and pricing information for specific procedures - they need
to make effective decisions about the quality and value of the health
care available to them through local hospitals, according to the Centers
for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which announced changes to the Hospital
Compare Website, one of several by CMS to help consumers make
intelligent health care choices.
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CMS has posted new survey information at the
Hospital Compare consumer Web site offering consumers more insight about
the hospitals in their communities.
In addition to adding the new information from
Medicare patients about their hospital stays, CMS is adding information
about the number of certain elective hospital procedures provided to
those patients and what Medicare pays for those services.
“By enhancing these resources, Medicare is
strengthening its commitment to use the transparency of quality
information to help give consumers more choice about the quality of
their health care and how they may be able to lower their health care
costs,” Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said.
“To achieve goals around providing consumers with
the information necessary, and the incentive, to choose hospitals based
on quality and value, HHS is continuing work with partners such as the
Hospital Quality Alliance to drive quality up and the cost down.”
CMS is part of HHS and Friday it posted new survey
information at the Hospital Compare consumer Web site offering consumers
more insight about the hospitals in their communities.
The Hospital Compare Web site currently provides
information on 26 quality measures, which include process of care and
outcome measures. Process of care measures report how well a hospital
provides care and outcome measures reflect the results of the care that
beneficiaries received while in the hospital.
With the addition of the 10 new patient experience
of care topics, consumers will now be able to get a better picture of
the quality of care delivered at their local hospitals.
“Medicare beneficiaries tell us that just like the
information they receive about other products and services they consume,
they want to know what their neighbors are saying about the care they
received while in the hospital; they want to know how much it costs; and
they want to know about the quality of that care. We are now sharing
that information,” said CMS Acting Administrator Kerry Weems.
“The nation’s hospitals and others who work with
patients share our goal of improving the quality of care for all. Our
quality improvement efforts include a wide-ranging set of tools and data
to do just that.”
The patient experience of care information on
Hospital Compare is part of the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare
Providers and Systems (CAHPS) Hospital Survey, know as HCAHPS. It is
the first national, standardized, publicly reported survey of patient
perspectives on care they experience during a hospital stay.
More than 2,500 hospitals around the country have
been collecting information from a random sample of discharged patients
who were treated for a wide range of conditions between October 2006 and
June 2007.
These patients were asked about their experiences
of care (including topics such as responsiveness of hospital staff and
pain management) and how they rate the hospital overall.
CMS worked with the federal Agency for Healthcare
Research and Quality (AHRQ) and with support from members of the
Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA) to develop the HCAHPS survey.
The new pricing and volume information at Hospital
Compare looks at the acute care hospital payments Medicare made for
treatment of beneficiaries with certain illnesses from October 2005
through September 2006. This information reflects what Medicare pays
the hospital for these services, not what beneficiaries pay.
CMS has posted this information for the public to
see the cost to Medicare of treating beneficiaries with certain
illnesses in their community. A better understanding of the cost of care
leads to more informed decision making, one more way beneficiaries can
help improve their health and support the longer term financial health
of Medicare.
This summer, CMS will add an additional outcome
mortality measure for pneumonia, which will accompany the mortality
measures for heart attack and heart failure that are currently posted on
the Hospital Compare Web site.
CMS will also provide more information in the
display of the mortality measures with the ability to focus on the
mortality measure rates, interval estimates and number of cases. Also,
two pediatric asthma measures that were collected by The Joint
Commission, a national accrediting organization, will now be posted on
the Hospital Compare Web site.
The updated information is part of the public
health effort to strengthen consumer choice and create incentives to
motivate providers to provide better care for all Americans, according
to CMS.
CMS also said in a news release that these
enhancements to the current provider compare resources also implement
the four cornerstones in President Bush’s August, 2006, Executive Order
13410 promoting value driven health care by ensuring transparent quality
and price information, interoperable health information technology and
incentives for high-quality, efficient health care delivery.
“Hospitals have already stepped up their efforts to
improve the care they provide based on the quality information that has
been publicly reported over the past few years,” said Weems.
“This new information should help accelerate that
process as more and more people pay attention to this important
information that is now available to the public. Collectively, the
quality, patient satisfaction, volume, and pricing information will help
us assure patients and their families that they have the information
they need about the care they are receiving while serving as a catalyst
to continue to improve the care delivered in our nation’s hospitals.”
Links to Medicare’s “Compare” Websites
● To access the Hospital Compare Web site, visit:
www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov.
● Other provider compare Web sites are available
through
www.medicare.gov or directly at –
● Nursing Home Information -
www.medicare.gov/NHCompare
● About Home Health Agencies -
www.medicare.gov/HHCompare
● End Stage Renal Disease Facilities -
www.medicare.gov/Dialysis
● Comparative information about Medicare
Advantage (www.medicare.gov/MPPF)
● Info on Medicare prescription drug plans (www.medicare.gov/MPDPF).
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