Villages Hospital Low Ratings
 

For such a physically-beautiful facility, how can The Villages Regional Hospital have such abysmally low ratings?

The Medicare “search for healthcare” tool shows TVRH rated at one-star (out of five) both by Medicare as well as a survey of recent patients. It’s the only hospital within 40 miles rated this low. Leesburg Regional Hospital isn’t much better, rated at two stars by Medicare and only one-star by patients.

The closest hospital with decent ratings is Advent Waterman Hospital in Tavares, rated at four-stars by Medicare and three-stars by patients.

To get top-rated hospitals we have to go to Shands in Gainesville or several in central Florida, but none closer than 50 miles away. We should probably take this into consideration when selecting our specialist doctors. Where do they have admitting priveledges and where do they perform procedures or surgeries? More importantly, are the better-rated hospitals and the doctors who practice there covered by your health insurance plan?

How long will it take for UF Health to improve care at our local hospitals? Or will we have to wait a decade until the new hospital is built and opened in the southern end of The Villages? In that all three hospitals will be owned by UF Health, we can guess how much emphasis will be placed on improving what will then be two older hospitals.

idk about the report, but we've had fine care from them. my husband was there 3 days last year, & have no complaints. i had to use the er LATE 1 night, & couldnt have been treated better.

Don't go to TV hospital if it's an emergency. I took my wife there after she ate something she was allergic to, covered in hives and her tongue was swollen, they would no even make eye contact with me when I tried to explain the problem and handed me a clipboard to fill out, I went back to the desk two more times in a period of over an hour as her tongue continued to swell, not once did they listen to a word I said. Finally a man waiting for another patient that was inside told me I better take her to an urgent care and I did, they gave her a Bennedryl (excuse spelling) injection and watched over her for 30 minutes until all was well. I'll never go there again.

We had excellent care at Advent Waterman, not so much at the ER room at The Villages hospital.

My wife has had to go to the ER at the Leesburg Hospital numerous times this past year. She isn't the best patient in the world by far but has had nothing negative to say about the ER or the wards she has stayed in and has said that the nursing staff was extremely friendly and attentive.

Entitled residents who go there for a hangnail cause the turn times, and if you read reviews on this site, the same people who bitch about the hospital bitch about pretty much everything.

I've read the reviews, but anyone I have talked to that ACTUALLY EXPERIENCED the hospital has mostly good things to say about the care they received. I have not used the hospital but did take a friend to the ER who got a face full of softball and they were all over it, and quickly.

Miserable people are only happy when they are miserable.

But The Ratings Are Medicare’s
 

OK, but the comparative hospital ratings used in the Medicare search tool are used to compare hospitals all over the country. Those that we all know have a top reputation—Shands, Mayo and Baptist in Jacksonville, Sarasota Memorial, Moffitt—all have five-star ratings. Are a few anecdotal reports from local ER patients enough to discount the Medicare ratings which are based on a huge base of actual insurance claims?

I can add an anecdote. I had a popular local primary care physician who has admitting privileges at TVRH tell me, “If you wake up and find yourself in The Villages Hospital... call a taxi and get out of there.” Needless to say, he doesn’t recommend TVRH to his patients.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) publishes and updates information on all hospitals which is used to develop ratings for use by the public to compare hospitals available to them. The Medicare ratings include actual evaluation of hospitals based on actual Medicare claims of the following factors:

—Patient Experience Measures are patients' opinions about the care they received.

—Process Measures give information about how many patients get the recommended care for their condition.

—Outcomes Measures show how well patients do after they receive treatment.

—Patient Safety Measures show how often patients suffer from hospital-acquired infections.

—Cost Measures are the cost of care for specific services.

A bone of contention with actual hospitals who see their ratings, and disagree with the weightings, and the comparatives, using the latent variable model. They are now coming out with a new methodology with ratings being released in April, which actual hospitals agree with be fairer, but the key is the data being used at least a year old and up to three years old. So the data is always old data, from certain aspects of reporting, so improvements take 2-3 years to get the improvements to show up in the data.

Also, CMS only uses Medicare data for the majority of the measures reported, which means not the whole picture at all

So, this is from CoachK's mouth who works with and reports to CMS

husband guy

I wonder if the rating procedure is slow to publish? University of Florida has an excellent rating and since they are now in charge of the "beautiful building" that the Morses built and lease to Hospital Corporations, it should be improved soon.

I have begun to realize that doctors do not live by medicare alone. With the high percentage of elderly patients in TV, don't hold your breath waiting for better health care.

I know the rating have been low but I thought Shands took over managing the hospital last year. It will take some time for the ratings to improve but I an guessing things are improving.

I believe previous threads have indicated that while the ratings are low, a large number of folks who have been there received exceptional care...my wife and I included. I know we need to look for ratings and reviews but be careful, sometimes the people who develop those ratings set the criteria to be a catch all. The ratings systems will be changing but I recommend using the ratings as part of your evaluation, and search out personal experiences and medical input to complete your view.

Happy people are only miserable when they are very ill and can't get the help they need.

With the average age in TV being 67 there are a lot of non-medicare patients here that also need care. When all the new permitted apartments and non age restricted single family homes and condos are completed there will be even more.

Glad to see a reply above from someone who has first-hand experience with CMS, the company which creates the ratings for Medicare.

I’ve heard that UF Health has gotten rid of quite a few under-performing medical and support employees at TVRH. But I’ve also heard that they’re having a tough time replacing them. The Villages reputation precedes it, and from the viewpoint of many being recruited to work and relocate here, the story isn’t always attractive.

Some of the issues that UF Health is having a hard time defending when trying to hire new staff include:

— Too white, not a great place for minorities of any kind.
— Not attractive to young families, OK schools but little else.
— Too far from the cutting edge medically
— The Villages is too homogeneous. And to live in a younger, more diverse community would require a long commute.
— Too one-sided politically
— Mostly geriatric patients (doesn’t enhance their experience/resumé)