How your hospital visit gets paid

I'm still trying to figure this out, but did you know that your satisfaction is important when it comes to paying for your hospital visit (at least if you are covered by Medicare).

"The survey contains 18 core questions about critical aspects of patients' hospital experiences (communication with nurses and doctors, the responsiveness of hospital staff, the cleanliness and quietness of the hospital environment, pain management, communication about medicines, discharge information, overall rating of hospital, and would they recommend the hospital)."

"The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-148) includes HCAHPS among the measures to be used to calculate value-based incentive payments in the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing program, beginning with discharges in October 2012."

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), every hospital that expects to get paid by the US government will be subject to patient satisfaction surveys, and the results of these surveys will determine how hospitals get reimbursed for taking care of you.