Patients’ Grades to Affect Hospitals’ Medicare Reimbursements - NYTimes.com

Patients’ Grades to Affect Hospitals’ Medicare Reimbursements - NYTimes.com: Winning praise from patients has become a pressing — and often elusive — obsession for NYU and for hospitals nationwide. In the coming months, Medicare will start taking patient satisfaction into account when reimbursing hospitals. Disgruntled patients will mean reduced revenue, a frightening prospect for hospitals already facing empty beds because of the recession and pressure from insurers to hold down costs.

Medicare’s new rule, mandated in the Affordable Care Act, pits hospitals against one another in a competition to best satisfy patients; those with the best scores will receive more money.

But some hospitals are worried that assessments from patients like Ms. Schwartz can be influenced not just by the quality of their care, but also by amenities like single rooms, renovated units and tasty food. And hospitals in cities and certain regions, like the Northeast and California, tend to get lower ratings, raising concerns that their revenues will be reduced simply because patients in those places are more disposed to grumble about things that a polite Midwesterner or Southerner would forgive.

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