MAY 4, 2023

• Houston Hospital Spring Safety Grades and NEW Report Card Announced
• The Importance of Hospital Nurses
• HB 711 Passes House by a Vote of 146-0, Will Ban Anti-Competitive Hospital & Health Plan Practices
• Texas Employers for Affordable Healthcare Launches Hospital Transparency Dashboard

The Leapfrog Group spring hospital safety grades and survey were released yesterday. HBCH, the Regional Leader for Leapfrog, also announced the availability of the new Houston Region Hospital Report Card to help patients find the safest hospitals when seeking care and employers when contracting hospital networks. The press release and links to more information can be found here. 

The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit representing hundreds of the nation’s most influential employers and purchasers of healthcare. Hospitals earn a safety grade reflecting how well the organization protects patients from medical errors, accidents, injuries, and infections. The better the safety grade, the less the likelihood of a severe event from a hospital stay. Of the 46 hospitals in the area scored, 15 earned an A, 11 a B, 17 a C, one a D, and two an F grade.

The Houston Region Hospital Report Card was developed by HBCH in partnership with The Leapfrog Group. In addition to the Hospital Safety Grades, the dashboard highlights the achievement status for standards from the annual voluntary Leapfrog Hospital Survey most indicative of a hospital’s likelihood of preventing harm.

HBCH commends the following hospitals that achieved a spring grade of A and fully completed the 2022 survey:

• HCA Houston Healthcare Conroe
• HCA Houston Healthcare Medical Center
• HCA Houston Healthcare Southeast
• Houston Methodist Hospital (Medical Center)

CBS Sunday Mornings included a video commentary on the importance of hospital nurses. The commentary by Sarah DiGregorio author of TAKING CARE The Story of Nursing and Its Power to Change Our World, included the following:

• Nurses strike because they know what the public does not know
• There is a strong correlation of nurse-to-patient ratio when it comes to patient safety and outcomes
• There is no correlation between hospital CEO pay and patient mortality or value to the community
• Hospital budgets should better reflect their community purpose

House Bill 711 passed the Texas House of Representatives last week by a vote of 146-0. It is now in the Senate where it can be passed before the legislative session ends on May 31.

HB 711 will ban anti-competitive language between hospitals and health plans. Anti-competitive language has been used to thwart the ability of employer purchases of healthcare benefits from understanding and thus negotiating fair prices for hospital services. If passed, the bill will prohibit gag clauses, anti-tiering, and anti-steering contract language.

HB 711 passed the House in large part because of employers, employees and Texas citizens letting their state representatives know that they want lower priced healthcare. This can be done by finding out Who Represents Me and sending a short note. Below is an example of a note.

I am writing to you to support the passage of House Bill 711 by the Senate. As healthcare prices skyrocket with limited to no transparency, I am looking for solutions like this to provide better quality and lower cost healthcare for our state, county, and local government employees, and their families.

The median price Texas employers pay for hospital care is 315% of what Medicare pays. Strikingly, the median breakeven amount – the payment rate a hospital needs from commercial payers to breakeven across all of its inpatient and outpatient services taking into account charity care and below-cost payments from other payers – is only 110% of Medicare. To help employers, policy makers, researchers, media and other stakeholders understand these price variations and disparities, Texas Employers for Affordable Healthcare launched a Hospital Transparency Dashboard.

This interactive tool offers insights on payer mix, operating profit margins, and the percentage commercial health plan sponsors pays a hospital relative to the breakeven cost for that hospital to provide those services to all of its patients. It can be filtered to examine individual hospitals, hospital system, hospital bed size, Metropolitan Statistical Area, legislator district, and reporting year.

The tool is among the resources developed to help support passage of legislation including House Bill 711 that will address anti-competitive contract provisions and conduct affecting healthcare provider networks that is in part responsible for the higher costs paid by employers.

The full press release can be read here.

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