AHA Asks CMS to End Hospital Star Rating Program

In a recent letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) Administrator, Seema Verma, MPH, the American Hospital Association (AHA) requested that the agency suspend the current hospital star ratings program referring to the program as a “regulatory burden” for hospitals.

“The regulatory burden faced by hospitals is substantial and unsustainable,” Thomas Nikels, AHA executive vice president of government relations and public policy, wrote in the letter. “As one small example of the volume of recent regulatory activity, in 2016, CMS and other agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released 49 hospital and health system-related rules, comprising almost 24,000 pages of text. In addition to the sheer volume, the scope of changes required by the new regulations is beginning to outstrip the field’s ability to absorb them.”

The star program scores hospitals quarterly and allows consumers the ability to compare their health care systems. However, the program has faced both criticism and praise since its launch earlier last year in July. Many health care groups and leaders often criticize the program for being misleading and oversimplifying complex data. Additionally, many critics of the program feel it penalizes teaching hospitals and facilities that have lower income patients. Since the launch of the program a mere 2.2% of hospitals has received five stars, and the most frequent rating seen has been three stars across 38.5% of hospitals.

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Although there is little evidence that exists on whether consumers utilize the star ratings, this is not the first time the AHA has voiced their opinion on the program. In 2016 following the program announcement, AHA President and CEO, Rick Pollack, referred to the program as confusing, and said it caused more questions than answers.

According to the AHA letter, CMS has created errors while executing the program causing hospitals to be classified incorrectly. Since its launch, CMS has made few changes to the program including lowering the number of quality measures used resulting in numerous provider groups to continue to push for the ratings to be delayed.

“Reducing administrative complexity in health care would save billions of dollars annually and allow providers to spend more time on patients, not paperwork,” Mr Nikels concluded.

—Julie Gould (Mazurkiewicz)