House Introduces Bill to Delay CMS Hospital Star Ratings

July 28, 2016 - The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) hospital star ratings may be postponed due to a new bill introduced on Monday, July 25 by House Representatives Jim Renacci (R-OH) and Kathleen Rice (D-NY). The reasoning for the delay is due to ensuring the hospital star ratings system is flawless and dependable, according to the American Hospital Association (AHA).

The bill is called the Hospital Quality Rating Transparency Act of 2016 and asks to push back the date for unveiling the CMS hospital star ratings system to no earlier than July 31, 2017. Additionally, the bill is calling for CMS to establish a comment period of 60 days in which the public can inform the federal agency of any issues or discrepancies with the methodology and data included in the hospital star ratings program.

Another important point that the bill includes is its requirement of having a third party confirm the methodology and data provided by CMS. Any star ratings available on the Hospital Compare website operating through CMS are asked to be taken down prior to the enactment of the Hospital Quality Rating Transparency Act of 2016.

The American Hospital Association and members of Congress have previously expressed some concerns about potential flaws in the CMS hospital star ratings system, which is why there is more pressure to postpone the deadline for releasing this particular program.

“Patients need clear, meaningful information to make important healthcare decisions,” Tom Nickels, Executive Vice President of Government Relations and Public Policy at the American Hospital Association, said in a public statement. “Yet, thus far, it is unclear whether the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) star ratings actually provide accurate and reliable data to the public.  As a result, we applaud and thank Reps. James Renacci (R-OH) and Kathleen Rice (D-NY) for introducing a bill to delay, for at least one year, the introduction of the CMS hospital star ratings.”

“Hospitals and members of Congress are in agreement: CMS can do better,” Nickels continued. “The majority of Congress – 60 members of the Senate and more than 225 members of the House – asked CMS to delay and improve upon the star ratings. Our own analysis of preliminary data continues to raise questions and concerns about the methodology, which may unfairly penalize teaching hospitals and those serving the poor.”

Originally, this past April, CMS had promised to incorporate a hospital star ratings system on the Hospital Compare website, which would have improved healthcare transparency greatly for consumers. The way this star ratings would work is by using patient surveys, readmissions and complications data, medical imaging rates, and the amount of Medicare beneficiaries served.

CMS has already delayed its unveiling of the hospital star ratings program until the end of July due to concern from the House of Representatives. This past April, a large number of representatives sent a letter to CMS to postpone the implementation of this rating system since it did not have quality benchmarks for measuring which hospitals serve patients with the most complex medical conditions.

Additionally, the representatives argued in the letter that the star ratings system was not transparent enough with the methodology it uses to compare hospitals. Five dozen US Senators also wrote a letter in which they urged the delay of the hospital star ratings system due to a lack of transparency and inadequacies regarding clinical quality measures.

“We are writing to express our concerns with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ upcoming release of the Hospital Compare Star Ratings,” the letter stated. “While we support the public reporting of provider quality data, we are concerned that the current Star Ratings system may not accurately take into account hospitals that treat patients with low socioeconomic status or multiple complex chronic conditions.”

Despite this bill, CMS unveiled the first version of the Hospital Quality Star Rating system on the Hospital Compare website yesterday, according to a press release from the federal agency. This will allow patients and families to compare hospitals on a five-point scale side-by-side.

CMS has worked with stakeholders across the aisles to create this rating system for hospitals in order to simplify the entire process of comparing hospitals and helping patients better understand the quality of care they would receive at their respective medical facilities. A Technical Expert Panel along with public input were used to create the hospital star ratings program.

CMS also stated in the release much support from patient advocacy groups in favor of having these type of rating systems set in place for greater healthcare transparency for consumers. This is especially important if looking at the type of hospitals that have had much lower rates of hospital readmissions and mortality.

“Consumers will be able to make smarter, better informed choices about their health care thanks to the hospital star ratings tool the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released today," Debra L. Ness, President of the National Partnership for Women & Families, said in a public statement. "Publication of the hospital quality performance scores to the CMS Hospital Compare website will strengthen our country’s health care system. Millions of patients and family members can now access a tool that provides important information on how their hospitals are performing on key health quality measures. Consumers can use this trustworthy program to compare hospitals side-by-side. This is a huge step forward."

Since some of the aspects used within the star ratings system relies mostly on patient feedback, it is understandable why a number of opponents are looking to delay this hospital comparing program. Time will tell whether this bill will pass and whether CMS will be left to renovate its hospital star ratings system to alleviate the concerns from Congress.