MESSAGE FROM THE CEO Using Medicare’s ASC Quality Reports
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n 2016, Medicare released its most comprehensive ASC quality data reports to date. These reports are built on data that ASCs have been submitting to Medicare since
2012. For the first time, the reports provide the public with information on a set of ASC quality measures that, in addition to some key process measures, like the use of a safe surgery checklist, provide data on actual outcomes measures like patient burns, wrong- site surgeries and patient falls. The good news is that, just as the ASC community suspected in 2006 when it began asking the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to institute a quality reporting program for ASCs, these reports contain great news about the quality of care that ASCs provide. The rates of adverse events that occur in ASCs each year are extremely low, and in many instances, nonexistent. Another positive finding tied to these quality data reports is that the information
they reveal tracks closely with information that the ASC community has collected independently for many years through the ASC Quality Collaboration. That suggests that although reported, collected and made public with manpower provided almost entirely within the ASC community, those historical reports are accurate as well. And those reports include data on both privately insured and Medicare patients. Despite the many ways that ASCs can celebrate the data in these reports and
public access to that information, it is easy to misinterpret the data, especially when considering a report for an individual ASC. For example, because national averages are provided for the various measures, some who have tried to use the data have raised concerns when an individual ASC’s reports are slightly above or below those numbers. In fact, the very definition of the term average means that some ASCs will report results above and some below those numbers, so slight variations should not be perceived as red flags for individual centers. Another aberration associated with the data is that because the final CMS reports
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Correction: On page 30 of the May issue, Amiee Mingus’s name was spelled incorrectly. ASC Focus regrets the error.
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incorporate data reported as incidents per 1,000, an ASC that performs a low volume of procedures could appear to have a serious safety problem when, in fact, only one patient may have experienced an adverse event there. As an example, the report for a center that experiences just 1 patient fall but sees only 200 patients in a year would indicate that the ASC has 5 patient falls per 1,000 patients. Users of the data who fail to take caseload into account might easily conclude that the ASC experienced 5 patient falls in one year. To help your ASC respond to any inquiries about the new quality reports that you get from patients or others in your community, ASCA has developed a set of talking points. These highlight the good news in the reports and can help you answer questions about some areas where the true meaning of the data is not immediately apparent. If you would like a copy of these talking points or have additional questions about the reports, please contact Kay Tucker at
ktucker@ascassociation.org.
Bill Prentice Chief Executive Officer
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