Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

The carrot of Medicare reimbursement finally woos more hospitals to quality movement.

A total of 3,008 hospitals have signed up to take part in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services National Voluntary Hospital Reporting Initiative, American Hospital Association policy chief Nancy Foster said in a Feb. 20 telephone briefing.

Just over 1,400 hospitals have submitted data on at least one of ten measures covering how well institutions adhere to best practices in treating victims of heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia. CMS says on its Web site that 4,661 short-term acute care hospitals are eligible for the initiative.

Almost 500 hospitals have submitted data for at least one measure concerning each of the three conditions. CMS Director of Quality Management Barbara Paul said that these institutions are essentially completely reporting, although some of them don't display data on the CMS Web site for measures on which they don't meet the minimum sample size.

Reporting numbers are up considerably over last October, when just over 1,700 hospitals had pledged to participate and 415 hospitals had provided data on at least one measure.