New Hospital Rating Service

Posted on June 7, 2008 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

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Consumers Union

[By Staff Reporters]Hospital Access Management

The nonprofit Consumers Union is launching a new hospital ratings service, adding to the growing competition to provide online consumer information about health care, as reported in the Wall Street Journal.

A Consumer Reports Publication

The effort, by the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, is a gamble that the credibility of the magazine’s name and its no-advertising stance can translate into the field of health care.

Of course, it is no secret that doctors and other medical providers have objected to some evaluations proposed previously, by insurers and others,

Content and Functionality

The online hospital service will include about 3,000 facilities, and consumers will be able to view a graph showing how intensely each hospital treats patients, on a scale from zero for the most conservative, to 100 for the most aggressive.

Intensity of care is based on time spent in the hospital and the number of doctor visits, while the index reflects the hospital’s handling of nine serious conditions, including cancer and heart failure when it treats patients in the last two years of life.

Assessment

The new Consumer Reports online offering will also include a dollar figure that reflects an average out-of-pocket cost for doctor visits during the last two years of life, for the nine listed conditions, though that doesn’t match up to the charge for any particular service.

Link: http://www.consumerreports.org/health/home.htm

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3 Responses

  1. Professor Lindberg, on September 17, 2009 at 10:21 AM said:

    Medical and Healthcare Institutional Colleagues,

    Relax and take a chill-pill; ratings won’t hurt you if reasonable:

    http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/06/23/bil10623.htm

    Professor Lindberg

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  3. Robert James Cimasi MHA AVA CMP™, on August 2, 2014 at 12:06 PM said:

    Navigating Hospital Rating Systems Can Be Difficult for Consumers

    Perhaps as a result of the passage of the Affordable Care Act, many consumers have taken a renewed interest in the healthcare delivery system, and are increasingly concerned with the quality of care they receive.

    Many of these concerned consumers have turned to the Internet as a resource, as reports that rate hospital and physician performance, as well as hospital and physician rankings based on patient satisfaction, safety, and infection rates, are becoming increasingly popular.

    However, there is a lack of consistency in rating methods between reporting agencies, and, as such, separate reports will often come to different conclusions for a single healthcare entity. These conflicting reports can make the process of finding a high quality provider more difficult for consumers, and potentially decrease hospital and physician patient volume, and therefore revenue.

    Click to access Ratings.pdf

    Robert James Cimasi MHA AVA CMP™

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