A new analysis commissioned by the American Hospital Association (AHA) examines the fundamental design flaws of star ratings, and whether it is an accurate tool to compare hospital performance. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) star ratings system was designed to help consumers, their families and caregivers compare facilities.
According to the analysis, the approach appears to have several shortcomings, including that there is a wide variation in the number of measures and categories used to identify the star ratings across hospitals, its methodology is not well constructed, it ignores other social determinants of quality outcomes and it implies substantial differences in quality that may not exist.
AHA believes CMS should make substantial changes in the star ratings system before it contemplates making it public. Recently, over half of the U.S. Senate and half of the U.S. House agreed that more work needed to be done. Click here to read more from the AHA.
