CMS is adding more information to its Hospital Compare consumer Web site to allow people to better compare the quality of care provided by their local hospitals. According to a press release, the improvements include the addition of a mortality measure for pneumonia and publicly reported measures for hospital care of children. Previously, Hospital Compare had provided only quality information based on hospitalizations of adult patients.
"Reporting quality data on the care provided hospital patients is a key to our continuing effort to provide better, value-based health care for all Americans," said Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt on August 20, 2008. Earlier this year, Medicare added patient satisfaction information to the Web site. The new additions bring the total to 26 process of care measures, three outcome of care measures, two children’s asthma care measures, and 10 patient experience of care measures. Hospital Compare also contains information about the number of certain elective hospital procedures provided to patients and what Medicare pays for those services. The site is http://www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov.
The functionality of ICD-9 codes has been exhausted and the code set can no longer add classification specificity, newly identified disease entities, and other advances that the ICD-10 codes would address. Official coding guidelines for coding diseases, injuries, impairments, other health problems and their manifestations, and causes of injury, disease, impairment, or other health problems would be affected by the proposed change. HIPAA covered entities would be required to use the ICD-10-CM codes when diagnoses and hospital inpatient procedures need to be coded in HIPAA transactions. ICD-10-PCS codes would not be used in outpatient transactions, because the codes are limited to inpatient procedures. An ICD-10-CM/PCS committee would also be established to coordinate and consider the usage of new codes and revisions to existing codes. Any impact on prospective payment systems currently using ICD-9-CM codes would be addressed by proposed regulations within those systems.
For mortality rates, hospitals are placed in one of three categories based on their performance in relation to a national rate — "no different than the U.S. national rate," "better than the U.S. national rate" or "worse than the U.S. national rate" — to provide results that are clear to patients and consumers, according to the Hospital Quality Alliance. In addition to the mortality data, hospitals also are sharing information on how many times they took the appropriate steps in treating pediatric asthma patients, it said.
Source: CCH Washington Bureau, Aug. 20, 2008.
For more information on this and related topics, consult the CCH® Medicare and Medicaid Guide.
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