A CMS proposal to base future hospital payments partly on hospital-acquired conditions as part of its value-based purchasing program raises "serious concerns" because HACs are already measured for current hospital payments, according to an AHA letter to the agency.
Since HACs are included in the current inpatient prospective payment system and the HAC penalty program in the healthcare reform law, hospitals could be financially penalized several times for the same measures if they were also included in CMS' upcoming value-based purchasing program, the letter stated.
In other comments on the CMS' value-based purchasing proposal, the letter asked to decrease weighting of data on patient experiences of care data from 30 percent to 15 percent of the hospital's total VBP score and to increase the minimum cases needed to be eligible for a measure from 10 to 25.
Read the AHA letter to CMS on quality measures (pdf).
Read other coverage about hospital-acquired conditions:
- CMS Proposes Rule on Payment Adjustment for Provider-Preventable Conditions
- CMS Proposes No-Pay Policies for 3 Preventable Surgical Errors
Since HACs are included in the current inpatient prospective payment system and the HAC penalty program in the healthcare reform law, hospitals could be financially penalized several times for the same measures if they were also included in CMS' upcoming value-based purchasing program, the letter stated.
In other comments on the CMS' value-based purchasing proposal, the letter asked to decrease weighting of data on patient experiences of care data from 30 percent to 15 percent of the hospital's total VBP score and to increase the minimum cases needed to be eligible for a measure from 10 to 25.
Read the AHA letter to CMS on quality measures (pdf).
Read other coverage about hospital-acquired conditions:
- CMS Proposes Rule on Payment Adjustment for Provider-Preventable Conditions
- CMS Proposes No-Pay Policies for 3 Preventable Surgical Errors
