Medicare’s Hospital Compare website evaluates hospital quality. One of the most recent measures to be added to Hospital Compare is a measure of efficiency. The measure calculates a price-standardized, case-mix adjusted measure of spending during period before, during and after a hospital admission. The Healthcare Economist (Jason Shafrin) and a team at Acumen (including Tom MaCurdy, Sajid Zaidi, Elen Shrestha, and David Pham) worked closely with CMS to develop this measure. Additional information on this measure is available here or see the results for San Francisco General Hospital here.
“The Spending per Hospital Patient with Medicare measure shows whether Medicare spends more, less, or about the same per Medicare patient treated in a specific hospital, compared to how much Medicare spends per patient nationally. This measure includes any Medicare Part A and Part B payments made for services provided to a patient during the 3 days prior to the hospital stay, during the stay, and during the 30 days after discharge from the hospital.
This result is a ratio calculated by dividing the amount Medicare spends per patient for an episode of care initiated at this hospital by the median (or middle) amount Medicare spent per patient nationally.
A result of 1 means that Medicare spends ABOUT THE SAME amount per patient for an episode of care initiated at this hospital as it does per hospital patient nationally.
A result that is more than 1 means that Medicare spends MORE per patient for an episode of care initiated at this hospital than it does per hospital patient nationally.
A result that is less than 1 means that Medicare spends LESS per patient for an episode of care initiated at this hospital than it does per hospital patient nationally.
Lower numbers are better.“
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