Home Health & Hospice Week

If you are confused about your star ratings, you aren’t alone. Patients are also unsure how to assimilate information from the two different composite star ratings available on Home Health Compare, reports National Public Radio.

One in five home health agencies has “Quality of Patient Care” and “Patient Survey Results” ratings that differed by two stars or more, a Kaiser Health News analysis of government records shows, NPR reports. Only 27 percent of HHAs receive four or five stars under the clinical star rating, while 74 percent of agencies received four or five stars under the patient star rating, Kaiser says.

Factoid: A mere 30 agencies received five stars on both ratings, according to Kaiser.

Consumers should realize that some parts of the rating system are out of an agency’s control, said Dr. Joanne Lynn, a geriatrician at the Altarum Institute, a nonprofit research and consulting firm.

For example, “If you’re in an area that doesn’t have a lot of advanced care planning, has a yearlong waiting list for Meals on Wheels, and no doctors who are able to visit people at home, you’re going to be stuck with sending sick people back to the hospital,” Lynn said.

Margaret Murphy with the Center for Medicare Advocacy fears that agencies that avoid particularly sick patients may end up looking better in the ratings, she told NPR.