CMS adds star ratings to Dialysis Facility Compare

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services today added star ratings to the Dialysis Facility Compare website, which are based on nine of the 11 quality measures reported on the website in 2014. The website no longer includes the measures for URR dialysis adequacy and Hemoglobin greater than 12 g/dL, because more than 99% of all patients achieve the thresholds set for these measures. CMS will continue to provide data on the hemoglobin measure at data.medicare.gov. Among other changes, the Standardized Readmission Ratio measure has been added to the website, but will not be included in the star ratings at this time. To receive a star rating, CMS must have collected data from a facility for at least one measure in each domain. Pediatric facilities are not currently rated due to lack of sufficient data for one or more measures. CMS plans to charge a technical expert panel with evaluating the star rating scoring methodology and measures and recommending potential changes for the future. Questions or comments about the new star ratings may be emailed to dialysisdata@umich.edu, Elena Balovlenkov at Elena.Balovlenkov@cms.hhs.gov or Joel Andress at Joel.Andress@cms.hhs.gov. For more information, see the CMS factsheet.