Two hospitals in Montana have earned 5-star ratings in patient satisfaction from Medicare. Those hospitals are Barrett Memorial in Dillon, and Great Falls Clinic Medical Center.
Nationwide, only seven percent of the more than 3,500 hospitals Medicare surveyed earned the five star rating.
The star rating system for patient satisfaction is new. Results released today are based on surveys from randomly selected adult patients contacted after they leave hospitals. They’re asked to rate eleven facets of their experience, including how well doctors and nurses communicated, how well their pain was addressed and whether they’d recommend the hospital to others.
In Montana, 24 of the state’s 56 hospitals got star ratings. Most of them were given four stars, and no hospital got a one-star rating.
Among the hospitals getting four star ratings for patient satisfaction were Community Medical Center and St Patrick Hospital in Missoula, Marcus Daly in Hamilton and North Valley Medical Center in Whitefish.
Nationwide some hospital executives are concerned that the star ratings will be misinterpreted by consumers as overall measures of quality and safety, and not just patients’ subjective opinions.
See how more of Montana’s hospitals were rated, or read more about the new patient satisfaction star rating system from Kaiser Health News.