Dive Brief:
- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is planning to make changes to its Hospital-Acquired Conditions (HACs) Reductions program measures.
- The program's measures have been the subject of criticism based on recent research that uncovered flaws.
- The new revisions are outlined in a policy brief by Health Affairs and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Dive Insight:
The purpose of the HAC Reductions program, which was developed under the Affordable Care Act, is to reduce the incidence of preventable conditions by financially penalizing low-performing hospitals.
Some of the program components that are now being criticized include multiple penalties for the same incident and claims-based measures that aren't statistically reliable (e.g., PSI-90) or that do not accurately reflect the patient's clinical history or the quality of care provided.
According to the policy brief, in an attempt to address the problems, CMS is planning to increase the number of National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) measures and use measures that more hospitals are likely to report. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also updating the assumptions used in calculating the NHSN measures, and the National Quality Forum is continuing to review the components and weight of the PSI-90 measure.