According to the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), Tanner Health System’s hospitals are proving to be a great value for Medicare patients.
Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton and Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica are among the top hospitals in the nation in the CMS’s Hospital Value-based Purchasing program.
Tanner Medical Center/Carrollton ranked 20th on the list of best-performing hospitals for the most recent CMS fiscal year, and Tanner Medical Center/Villa Rica ranked 61st among the more than 2,700 hospitals participating in the CMS Hospital Value-based Purchasing program. Tanner’s Higgins General Hospital in Bremen, a critical access hospital, is not participating in the program.
The scores were based on three factors—clinical process of care, patient experience of care and outcomes—and were collected over CMS’s most recent fiscal year.
The CMS Hospital Value-based Purchasing program, which recognizes hospitals that provide the greatest value to the Medicare and Medicaid programs, is intended to transform Medicare—the nation’s largest insurer—from a passive payer for services to a prudent purchaser of services, paying not just for quantity of services but for quality as well.
With value-based purchasing, CMS is not identifying the hospitals that serve the most people, but those that have delivered the greatest value for CMS’s dollars, according to Tanner President and CEO Loy Howard.
“Excelling in the CMS Hospital Value-based Purchasing program means our facilities are leading the way in reducing complications and readmissions and in providing the right care at the right time to ensure the best possible outcomes—thereby providing the highest value to CMS,” said Howard.
The rankings also mean that Tanner will not be financially penalized by Medicare.
“Along with proving once again that we’re delivering exceptional patient care, these rankings also impact our bottom line, as reimbursement from CMS will be determined by standards such as these,” said Howard. “In fact, there are 1,451 hospitals throughout the nation that will actually receive lower reimbursement due to their poor value-based purchasing performance.”
Nationally, 1,231 hospitals will receive higher payments, and about 630 hospitals will receive a bonus of more than 0.2 percent.
More information on how Tanner’s facilities compare to others in the region on key quality measures is available at www.TannerQuality.org. To find a physician on Tanner’s medical staff, visit www.tanner.org or call 770.214.CARE (2273).