CMS is slated to release its Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings update this month, though the agency has been tight-lipped about when this will occur.
A CMS spokesperson on July 6 said the agency's Medicare Care Compare website is scheduled to publish the star ratings "in the near future" in response to Becker's inquiry about a release date.
CMS postponed its next hospital star ratings update from April to July to fix an error involving calculations using 2021 hospital data for the OP-10 outpatient imaging efficiency measure. The agency also delayed the public reporting of 2022 OP-10 measure results alongside the star ratings.
CMS' star rating system, launched in 2016, assigns stars based on 48 measures in the following five categories: mortality, safety of care, readmission, patient experience, and timely and effective care. The agency last updated its hospital star ratings in April 2021. Overall, 50 percent of hospitals received the same rating, 45 percent moved up or down by one star, and 5 percent shifted up or down by two or more stars.