Statement of Dialysis Patient Citizens on CMS Announcement of Delay in Implementing Star Ratings for Dialysis Facility Compare Website
Today, Dialysis Patient Citizens received a notice from CMS announcing a three-month delay in implementing its Star Ratings Program for the Dialysis Facility Compare website. Contrary to CMS’ announcement, a delay alone is not responsive to the concerns expressed by stakeholders and certainly not to those expressed by DPC. While CMS said it was “partnering with the ESRD community,” it has instead declined to consider input on how to design patient-friendly ratings, and ignored DPC’s requests to see consumer testing materials and the geographic distribution of star assignments. We believe that CMS’ methodology which gives thirty percent of dialysis facilities the [...]