Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement
Facility Incentive Pay May Tie Into Infection Protection
In September, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Hospital Quality Alliance released new quality information on the Hospital Compare Web site about increases in hospital reporting and new quality measures.
In the update, CMS added two new surgical infection prevention measures and a new pneumonia measure.
These additions bring the total number of measures to 20, "including the 10 clinical measures that short-term acute-care hospitals must agree to report publicly in order to receive the incentive payments," the agency says.
The Surgical Care Improvement Project spurred the new surgical infection prevention measures. SCIP's goal is to reach a 25 percent reduction in postoperative complications by 2010, CMS says.
Also, more than 90 percent of participating hospitals are reporting on at least the "starter set" of 10 measures, and more than 70 percent are reporting all 17 of the quality measures, according to CMS.
"While it is too early to determine any major trends in hospital performance on the measures, the latest information makes it even clearer that there are important opportunities for quality improvement," says CMS Administrator Mark McClellan.
Find it online: For more information on hospital quality data and the new measures, go to:
http://www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov or http://www.medicare.gov.
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