[Shipping up to Boston]

Originally Posted by golfing eagles

You are correct. The demographics of a hospital's catchment area greatly affects its rating, and there is even more. Medicare generally bases its ratings on outcomes in 4 DRG's----acute MI (heart attack), CVA (stroke), CAP (Community acquired pneumonia) and nosocomial (hospital acquired) infections. A somewhat poor score in any of those drags the rating down, even if they were 100% in hundreds of other DRGs. And note, the outcome of any of those 4 DRGs gets much worse as the population ages.

On the other hand, specialty hospitals get extremely high ratings---I haven't looked but 10 years ago the #1 rated hospital was solely an ENT facility in Utah, generally followed by single specialty eye hospitals. As you can imagine, there aren't many strokes, heart attacks or pneumonias in those facilities, so their numerator is ZERO.

And lastly, because of the way the data is reported and collated, these ratings lag 2-3 years behind the actual situation at any given facility---no different than looking at a restaurant review from 3 years ago.

It’s akin to the way crime statistics are compiled. The vaunted per capita explanation. You could have a double homicide in Anywhere USA and for at least those few hours, that community is the most dangerous place in the country.