CMS adds patient satisfaction, pricing data to consumer website
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| CMS gives Medicare beneficiaries more data on care quality at hospitals. Source: MD Medicare Choice |
The website already offered 26 measures to assess the quality of care in acute care hospitals and now includes information on the average payment it makes for a range of procedures, according to CMS.
Acting Administrator Kerry Weems said in a statement that Medicare beneficiaries want to know what other patients are saying about the care received in a hospital; how much it costs and what the quality of care was like. “We are now sharing that information,” Weems said.
CMS added the results of a patient care survey that illustrates the patient perceptions of the quality of care they received at the hospital.
The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey, which covers 2,500 hospitals, was collected over the course of nine months, and is the first national, standardized and publicly reported survey of patient perspectives on the quality of care received during a hospital stay, CMS said.
The results show that 67 percent of patients said they would "definitely recommend" the facility in which they received treatment to friends and relatives and that 63 percent gave their hospitals a nine or 10 rating on a scale of zero to 10. However, many patients reported being dissatisfied with some aspect of their care, the survey found.
According to the New York Times, many patients said they were not treated with respect by providers, that they did not understand instructions for care after discharge and that they did not receive adequate pain medication after surgery. About 25 percent of patients said nurses did not communicate well with them, the survey found.
The information will be updated quarterly, and data from most acute care hospitals should be on the site by year-end, according to CMS.
Visit the Hospital Compare website at hospitalcompare.hhs.gov.