Chapter 6: Medicare’s measurement of rural provider quality

Chapter 6: Medicare’s measurement of rural provider quality 
MedPAC; 6/12/25 
... Because of low patient volumes in many rural health care settings, there are practical challenges in measuring some individual rural providers’ quality of care and in holding these providers accountable in quality reporting programs. ... The Commission acknowledged these difficulties when it established specific principles to guide expectations about quality in rural areas. These principles were developed with hospitals in mind but could be applied to other providers. ... [On page 4 of 40] Rural skilled nursing facilities and dialysis facilities had lower shares of providers with publicly reported quality results compared with their urban counterparts; in contrast, rural home health agencies and hospices had higher shares of providers with publicly reported quality results compared with their urban counterparts.
Editor's Note: For ranking of hospices by quality scores, examine the National Hospice Locator, provided to the public by Hospice Analytics (a sponsor of this newsletter).