HHS Updates Site for Health Care Cost and Quality

April 2, 2008

Last week the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS),)unveiled an updated Web site for hospital comparisons which now includes information from Medicare patient surveys as well as some cost details for certain procedures. The latest in their efforts to enhance transparency and improve quality, HHS’s revamped Web site will provide not only cost and quality information, but real-world experiences.

In addition to adding the new information from Medicare patients about their hospital stays, CMS is adding information about the number of certain elective hospital procedures provided to those patients and what Medicare pays for those services. The Hospital Compare Web site currently provides information on 26 quality measures, which include process of care and outcome measures. With the addition of the 10 new patient experience measures, consumers will have even more tools to use in making decisions about their own health care.

The patient experience of care information on Hospital Compare is part of the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Hospital Survey (HCAHPS). HCAHPS is the first national, standardized, publicly reported survey of patient perspectives on the experience of care received. More than 2,500 hospitals around the country have been collecting information from a random sample of discharged patients who were treated for a wide range of conditions between October 2006 and June 2007. CMS worked with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to develop the HCAHPS survey, to continue to improve the care delivered in our nation’s hospitals. CMS hopes to increase the number of hospitals participating to 3,900 by March 2009

The new pricing and volume information at Hospital Compare looks at the hospital payments Medicare made for certain illnesses from October 2005 through September 2006. This information reflects what Medicare pays the hospital for these services, not what beneficiaries pay. CMS has posted this information for the public to see the cost to Medicare of treating beneficiaries with certain illnesses in their community.

The updated information is part of the ongoing drive by HHS and CMS to strengthen consumer choice and improve quality through greater transparency—a key priority for NSBA. Stemming from President Bush’s August, 2006, Executive Order 13410, these efforts on federal programs are likely to spur increased transparency throughout the U.S. health care system.

Please click here to visit the Hospital Compare Web site.