Health Management Soup: Patient Satisfaction A Factor in Medicare Payment to Hospitals!

In the coming months, Medicare will start taking patient satisfaction into account when reimbursing hospitals.

Kaiser Health News: When TLC Doesn't Satisfy Patients, Elite Hospitals May Pay A Price
Winning praise from patients has become a pressing — and often elusive — obsession 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 (Rau, 11/8).

The Wall Street Journal: A Financial Incentive For Better Bedside Manner
How patients feel they were treated has always colored their opinions of a hospital. Now, those feelings are being factored into how hospitals get paid. Starting next fall, the federal Medicare program will withhold 1% of a vital payment—totaling an estimated $850 million, with the percentage doubling to 2% in 2017—as part of a program in last year's U.S. health-care overhaul designed to force hospitals to improve the quality of care and trim costs (Landro, 11/7).

This is part of Kaiser Health News' Daily Report - a summary of health policy coverage from more than 300 news organizations. This was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.