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Health
agencies' ratings go public
The information on
Medicare-certified agencies that provide help with essential daily
activities to older and disabled Americans became available Monday on the
government's Medicare Web site - www.medicare.gov - or through the
Medicare telephone help line, (800) Medicare. The information on
11 categories, including dressing, bathing, walking, going to the
bathroom, taking oral medications independently and hospital use, showed
the local agencies had fewer patients improving in five of the categories
than the state average. Patients have improved in five categories and are
even with the others in the state in one service. Compared to the
national figures, But those
comparisons aren't as important as looking at each agency, said Karen
Leach, a spokeswoman for the Texas Medical Foundation. "The whole
point of this initiative is not to compare state-to-state but for the
consumer to be able to go online and look at the quality measures for the
home care agencies near them that they are likely to use and be able to
sort by individual agency which one does the best at the service I need
the most." The
federally-funded foundation helps home health agencies improve their
quality. The differences
between the best and worst states aren't great, Leach said. The reason for
making the ratings public is to give the agencies and doctors an incentive
to improve by being in the public eye, said Dr. Barbara Paul, who leads
the quality monitoring program for Medicare. Paul and Tom
Scully, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,
the federal agency that runs Medicare, spoke in a telephone news
conference Monday. The 11 ratings are
snapshots of quality but not the only measures of quality and the rating
system isn't linked directly to regulations or incentives, Paul said. "I know the
statistics came out today and we've got good results in hospital
admissions and our unplanned care admissions are very low compared to But the lower than
average percentage of patients who have improved walking is not really
accurate because their patient census is low, she said. One patient with a
problem will affect a smaller organization more than a larger
organization, she said. But Paul said the
data were adjusted to account for patient severity and other differences,
and Scully said it's normal for those with lower scores to fault the
rating methods. "The fact is,
and the whole point of getting people to change their behavior and operate
better, is to put the information out there," Scully said. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
