Hospital size and respondents' primary language are the most significant predictors of unfavorable HCAHPS scores, according to a recent study published in The Journal of Hospital Medicine.
Researchers analyzed surveys from 934,800 patients in 3,907 hospitals in more than 3,100 county demographics and found that lower HCAHPS scores tend to cluster in heterogeneous population-dense areas. They said this could affect CMS' Hospital Value-Based Purchasing program, potentially resulting in biased reimbursement for hospitals in large, urban spaces.
In order to measure the results based on factors that individual hospitals can actually control for, the researchers developed the Weighted Individual Hospital Patient Satisfaction Adjustment Score, or WIPSAS, which eliminates the largest out-of-control influences on unfavorable HCAHPS scores.
The authors concluded that "CMS should consider WIPSAS or a similar adjustment to account for the severity of patient satisfaction inequities that hospitals could strive to correct."
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