CMS updates Patient Satisfaction Survey Data on its Hospital Compare Website

CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) released the patient satisfaction survey data on its Hospital Compare website April 28, which involved the calculating new HCAHPS summary star ratings for hospitals.

CMS initiated assigning the hospitals a one through five star rating based solely on HCAHPS scores in the year of April 2015. To calculate these summary star ratings, CMS first offers star ratings to hospitals for each of the 11 HCAHPS questions. The summary star rating merges the 11 HCAHPS star ratings into one comprehensive metric. Read more about the method here. CMS has updated the Patient Satisfaction Survey Data on its Hospital Compare Website.

As of the day April 28, 3,499 hospitals have an HCAHPS summary star rating. The breakdown is as follows:

• Five stars: 188 hospitals
• Four stars: 1,178 hospitals
• Three stars: 1,493 hospitals
• Two stars: 563 hospitals
• One star: 77 hospitals

CMS gives these star ratings to “enable consumers to more quickly and conveniently assess the patient experience of care data that is given on the Hospital Compare website,” in accordance to the CMS website. CMS has updated the Patient Satisfaction Survey Data on its Hospital Compare Website.

Researchers are categorized on if these star ratings will really drive sufferers to higher-quality hospitals, since the ratings are deployed solely on patient experience scores, not on patient outcomes, and several industry leaders had adverse reactions to the ratings.

One study, released in JAMA Internal Medicine in April 2016, discovered hospitals with higher HCAHPS star ratings really do have lower mortality and readmission rates. “These findings should be motivating for policymakers and consumers; selecting five-star hospitals doesn’t seem to lead to worse outcomes and in fact might be driving patients to better institutions,” the authors summarized. “It is reassuring that sufferers can use the star ratings in guiding their healthcare-seeking decisions given that hospitals with more stars not just offer a better experience of care, but also have lower mortality and readmissions.”

The JAMA Internal Medicine research aligned with another study released in the year of April 2016 in the Journal of Patient Experience that discovered statistically important associations between the number of stars for patient experience and multiple clinical outcomes — higher star ratings meant lower complication rates and readmissions, the researchers discovered.

Although, a study from Quantros released in the month of August 2016 produced contrary findings and said the star ratings are “misleading and might really steer sufferers to hospitals with poor clinical outcomes.”

Regardless, CMS updates the HCAHPS summary star ratings every quarter.

It is significant to note sufferer experience star ratings differ from CMS’ Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating program, which incorporates outcomes measures as well as patient experience scores.

The overall star ratings will be updated in the month of July. As of the December update, here is the breakdown of overall star ratings:

• Five stars: 83 in December
• Four stars: 946
• Three stars: 1,794
• Two stars: 694
• One star: 112