04/07/2022

April Five Star Technical User Guide Released

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the April refresh of the Five Star Technical User Guide which includes updates to the quality measure star rating thresholds. Effective with the April 2022 refresh, CMS is implementing the planned, regular increases to the Quality Measure (QM) rating thresholds, increasing each rating threshold by one-half of the average improvement in QM scores since the last time the thresholds were set. For the April 2022 refresh, the average improvement is determined from the period of April 2019 – January 2022. The new rating thresholds are shown in Table 6 of guide. Note that the point thresholds (Table A2) for individual QMs are not changing. An example of the update to obtain 5 stars for the overall QM rating required a minimum of 1,475 points and has now changed to 1,510 points.

LeadingAge Ohio reminds members to obtain their Five-Star Preview Reports. To access these reports, select the CASPER Reporting link located on the CMS QIES Systems for Providers page. Once in the CASPER Reporting system, select the 'Folders' button, then select 'My Inbox' or the Inbox beginning with 'LTC' and the state abbreviation followed by a facility ID.