quality ratings
Minnesota Blue plan accepts provider reviews on Web site
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota has taken an unusual step--it's allowing patients to post provider reviews to a new, dedicated website... Read more...
Critical-access hospitals not part of CMS quality program
Raising some hackles, CMS has made the decision to exclude critical-access hospitals from its Hospital Outpatient Quality Data Reporting program. The program, which kicks off in April 2008, will... Read more...
Another NY health insurer agrees to doctor-ranking rules
Yet another health plan has agreed to adopt New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's model for ranking physicians. Independent Health, which has 360,000 members in the state, signed an agreement to... Read more...
Foxes in the henhouse: The limits of health plan MD ratings
Over the few days, Aetna and Read more...
NY officials demand halt to doctor-rating plan
As consumer-driven healthcare keeps evolving, rating physician quality and making those ratings public is only natural, right? Not in New York, it isn't. The state AG's office has issued a warning... Read more...
Colorado hospitals launch report card effort
The Colorado Hospital Association has announced that it will begin providing state-mandated hospital performance data on the Web later this year. The Colorado Hospital Report Card, which was ordered by the state's legislature, will report mortality rates, the number of procedures and several other patient safety measures. In the future, the report card will include clinical quality measures, patient satisfaction scores, efficiency measures and best practices data. The association already …
... Read more...PA releases hospital-specific cardiac surgery costs
The state of Pennsylvania has released a new cardiac surgery performance report which for the first time includes hospital-specific payment data. According to the report, which was issued by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council, the average payment for heart bypass procedures by commercial health plans was $30,247, and for valve-only procedures $41,651 during 2005. Medicare paid $29,175 for bypasses and $42, 433 for valve-only procedures. The state's hospital association …
... Read more...CMS to publish cardiac death rates, but carefully
Quite aware that a misstep could generate a huge backlash among hospitals, CMS has chosen a conservative course for its planned publication of cardiac death rates. Starting next month, the agency will publish death rates for heart attack and heart failure on its Hospital Compare website. The reports, which reflect stats from July 2005 to June 2006, profile heart attack and heart failure patients who died within a month of entering the …
... Read more...Tenn. hospitals put prices online
Bowing to the pressures created by the consumer-driven healthcare trend, the Tennessee Hospital Association has created a website offering service prices for most of its 136 member hospitals. The site, which draws on data reported to the state from October 2003 to September 2004, list average prices for common procedures. HCA hospitals aren't included in the tally, but the site does link to HCA's own price disclosure sites. (HCA recently decided to disclose prices for common procedures at …
... Read more...Study:Midwest hospitals lead in performance
According to a new study, hospitals in the Midwest are performing particularly well compared with their counterparts elsewhere in the country. The study, which was performed by Solucient, identifies 100 benchmark hospitals based on their overall performance each year. Criteria for screening the hospitals covered nine key factors, including risk-adjusted mortality, risk-adjusted complications, patient safety, core measures average, growth in patient volume and severity-adjusted average …
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