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HCAHPS: Redefining Hospital Reimbursement
CMS has launched a national program that will significantly impact and redefine the way hospitals are paid for the services they provide. This new program, the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Health Providers and Systems (HCAHPS), is a federal standardized survey for measuring patients' perspectives on their quality of care. Hospitals are required to collect and submit HCAHPS quality measures in order to receive their full annual payment updates each year, while those that fail to publicly report the required data will see their annual payment rates decrease by as much as 2%. Additionally, CMS' final rule indicates it will implement a hospital Value Based Purchasing (VBP) program that will tie Medicare payments to the quality of hospital care beginning October 1, 2012.
Big dollars are at stake for your hospital
Because a 30% weighting will be assigned to HCAHPS scores, it is important to fully understand this survey. It asks discharged patients 27 questions about their recent hospital stay, encompassing eight key topics:
1) Communication with doctors
2) Communication with nurses
3) Responsiveness of hospital staff
4) Pain management
5) Communication about medicines
6) Discharge information
7) Cleanliness of the hospital environment
8) Quietness of the hospital environment
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