Patient satisfaction directly linked to hospital reimbursements By Maria Meadowcroft
N
o one wants to have to stay in the hospital
excellent patient care, and that HCAHPS survey is very
overnight, but if you’ve ever had to you probably
important to us. It can impact any future experience
remember a few things: pain, the physicians and
you might have. This feedback is important because the
nurses who were trying to keep that pain tolerable, a
survey results can provide invaluable information about
call bell, and nurses checking on you, listening to your
the overall hospital experience for the patient. It helps us
questions and explaining things in ways you understood.
learn our strengths and weaknesses. It can also pinpoint
Hopefully, when it was time to go home, the hospital
areas of patient satisfaction success and those that need
staff made sure you had all the information and help
improvement, ultimately leading to improvement in
you needed to avoid a relapse and readmission, along
overall patient satisfaction and the delivery of quality
with written instructions to consult about symptoms,
health care to our community. We partner with Avatar,
problems, and how to care for yourself. After your stay,
a company that conducts patient satisfaction surveys.
maybe you were sent a survey in the mail a week or two
Like many hospitals, we view patient satisfaction as a
after you were home. Did you fill out the survey and return it, or did you toss it in the trash can not wanting to be bothered? Because of the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), hospital reimbursements are significantly impacted by HCAHPS (Hospital
key tool in our quality improvement
It is believed that patient satisfaction will significantly define the future of health care in the United States.
Consumer Assessment of Healthcare
processes. In addition, the Hospital ValueBased Purchasing Program of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services links part of a hospital’s payment to its performance on a set of quality measures. They also provide significant financial incentives for hospitals to score well in the HCAHPS
Providers and Systems) scores. HCAHPS is a hospital
survey. The program allows CMS to collect from
survey instrument and data collection methodology
hospitals up to 1 percent of their CMS reimbursement
for measuring patients' perceptions of the hospital
monies in 2013, and 0.25 percent from 2014 to 2017,
experience. This means that patients can report and
and redistribute that money to different hospitals
rate their hospital experiences, which provides valuable
according to performance in 12 clinical process of care
feedback to future patients and the hospital. It is believed
domains. The process of care domains include core
that patient satisfaction will significantly define the
measure indicators associated with heart failure, acute
future of health care in the United States.
myocardial infarction, pneumonia and the Surgical Care
At Holy Cross Hospital, we work hard to provide
Improvement Project and eight patient satisfaction
2014-2015 Medical & Wellness Directory • 22