CMS updates compare website to include rehabilitation, long-term care facilities
Measures posted on websites give key quality metrics such as pressure ulcers, readmissions for over 1,100 inpatient rehabilitation facilities.
Patients and family members can now compare the quality of providers, facilities and health plans associated with inpatient rehabilitation facilities and long-term care hospitals through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services compare website, according to a blog by Patrick Conway, MD, acting principal deputy administrator and chief medical officer for CMS, and Kate Goodrich, MD, director, Center for Clinical Standards and Quality.
Under the Affordable Care Act, both facilities are required to report data to CMS on a number of quality measures and health outcomes.
The measures posted on the websites give key quality metrics, such as pressure ulcers and readmissions, for over 1,100 inpatient rehabilitation facilities and 420 long-term care hospitals.
Both the inpatient rehabilitation facilities and long-term care compare websites show the percent of residents or patients with pressure ulcers that are new or worsened; and the all-cause unplanned readmission measure for 30 days post-discharge from inpatient or from a long-term care hospital.
Inpatient rehabilitation facilities are freestanding rehabilitation hospitals and rehabilitation units in acute care hospitals and critical access hospitals.
Long-term care hospitals are acute‑care hospitals, but focus on patients who, on average, stay more than 25 days and need extended hospital-level care. Many patients are transferred there from an intensive or critical care unit.
Medicare-certified hospices will soon be available on the hospice data directory.
After releasing the Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating for the Hospital Compare website in July, CMS will be updating that overall data to reflect refreshed measure data, Conway and Goodrich said.
Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers & Systems data will be updated and five new oncology care measures will be added to the prospective payment system-exempt cancer hospital reporting program. Also, there is the addition of readmission after coronary artery bypass graft surgery measure to the hospital readmission reduction program.
[Also: CMS finalizes Medicare quality measures under consideration]
Finally, CMS will also be adding new quality data and other information to its physician compare website. As part of a phased approach to public reporting, CMS is now preparing to include a significantly larger and more diverse set of quality information for group practices, individual clinicians, and accountable care organizations. The goal is to help consumers with Medicare coverage to better evaluate data for more group practices and clinicians across a range of specialties.
Additionally, CMS will be releasing a new user-focused redesign of physician compare.
Twitter: @SusanJMorse
