What are these hospital ratings?
CMS means Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which performs annual ratings on 4,000 hospitals nationally. You can go to this website, click on “hospitals” and find the star ratings for acute care hospitals.
Here are star ratings of some well-known area hospitals:
Mpls. VA Medical Center: 5
Mayo Clinic Hospital Rochester: 5
Sanford Medical Center Fargo: 5
Essentia Health St. Mary’s: 5
Mayo Clinic Mankato: 5
Mayo Clinic Franciscan: 5
Mayo Clinic Albert Lea & Austin: 5
Sioux Falls VA Medical Center: 5
M Health Fairview Woodwinds: 5
Lake Region Healthcare: 5
Buffalo Hospital: 5
Cambridge Medical Center: 5
Avera Marshall Regional: 5
Fargo VA Medical Center: 4
Essentia Health Fargo: 4
M Health Fairview Southdale: 4
M Health Fairview St. John’s: 4
M Health Fairview Ridges: 4
Abbott Northwestern: 4
Allina United: 4
St. Francis Regional: 4
St. Cloud Hospital: 4
Essentia St. Joseph’s: 4
Sanford USD Medical Center: 4
Gunderson Lutheran UW Health: 4
Sanford Bemidji: 4
Centracare-Rice Memorial: 4
Owatonna Hospital: 4
Maple Grove Hospital: 4
Lakeview Memorial: 4
Mayo Clinic Red Wing: 4
M Health Fairview U of M: 3
Park Nicollet Methodist: 3
St. Lukes Hospital: 3
North Memorial: 3
Regions Hospital: 3
Mercy Hospital Coon Rapids: 3
Fairview Lakes Health Services: 3
Altru Hospital: 3
Hennepin County Medical Center: 2
St. Cloud VA Medical Center and Tomah VA Medical Center: Not available. (There are too few measures. Medicare won’t pay for services at this hospital except in very limited circumstances.)
In this year’s CMS Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings, more than 58 percent of VA hospitals included received 4- or 5-star ratings compared to 40 percent of non-VA hospitals.
The CMS website also provides patient satisfaction survey results (as a separate star rating) for many kinds of facilities: critical access hospital, psychiatric facilities, children’s hospitals and more. This allows patients to evaluate where to get care.