The federal government will soon be rating the nation's nursing homes on a five-star quality scale.
Kerry Weems, acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, announced the plan during a teleconference. The new, simple rating system will give patients and their families an easy way to evaluate quality at the nation's nursing homes, said Mr. Weems.
Officials will spend the next few months figuring out how to determine the number of stars a facility deserves. Mr. Weems said the agency will base the system on existing data sources including annual inspections of the facility, information on 19 quality measures, and staffing data. But he added that he's open to incorporating other consistent, accurate, and reliable data sources.
The task between now and December of this year, when the CMS plans to have the rating system up and running on its Nursing Home Compare Web site, is to determine how to weight data to distinguish high- and low-performing facilities, Mr. Weems said. The CMS is seeking comments on how to make the system informative and user friendly.
Last year, the CMS instituted a star rating system for Medicare Advantage plans. However, this will be the first star system introduced to the Medicare fee-for-service program, according to the CMS.
“Transparent information is an effective incentive for quality,” Mr. Weems said.
The American Health Care Association, a federation of state health organizations representing long-term care providers, welcomed the new system. However, the group cautioned that relying heavily on survey data is not the best way to assess quality. CMS officials should also consider incorporating metrics such as consumer and staff satisfaction, the organization said in a statement.
Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), who as chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging has been pushing the CMS to increase nursing home-quality information on the Web site, commended Mr. Weems for the new plan.
In a prepared statement, however, Sen. Kohl raised the issue that some of the data that will go into the star ratings are not objective measures. “Some of this information is self-reported [by nursing homes], and could be made more reliable, but we are moving in the right direction,” he said.
Comments on the system can be sent to bettercare@cms.hhs.gov