Hospital groups urge CMS to address concerns with star ratings methodology

The AHA, Association of American Medical Colleges, America’s Essential Hospitals, and Federation of American Hospitals today urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to share additional information with hospitals and the public about how accurately its overall hospital quality star ratings portray hospital performance and work with hospitals to validate the methodology, or continue to withhold publication of the ratings. “Since the sole purpose for creating the star ratings was to provide accurate information to the public to guide their decision-making about where to get their care, hospitals and patients alike must have meaningful information on whether the assessment is fair and accurate,” the organizations wrote. “…In fact, the minimal data available to us do not offer substantive proof that the methodology works as it was intended, and raise many more questions and concerns about the methodology than they answer.” Further, an analysis by an independent expert “gave us strong reason to believe that the assumptions on which the current model is based are flawed in a number of ways,” the organizations said. For more on the issue, see today’s AHA STAT blog post by AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack.