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You: Uh-oh, 6 hospitals in Austin avoided getting sued this year
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid awarded stars based on bullshit metrics like safety, patient feelings, deaths, patient mistreatment, and readmissions. Basically, they're giving participation awards to hospitals, so everyone feels special. Whoop-de-fuckin-do.
Published August 6, 2024 at 6:02am by Nicole Villalpando
Austin-Area Hospitals Receive Federal Ratings: No Gold Medals, But Plenty of Participation Trophies
The Olympic Games might dish out gold medals, but the federal government's Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is more stingy, only giving out five stars to a select few hospitals in the Austin area. Of course, they had to hand out some participation awards, too, so a few local hospitals managed to scrape by with four and three stars.
CMS, in its infinite wisdom, takes into account factors like death rates (because, you know, some hospitals are just better at killing patients), patient experience (were the patients fed enough opium to dull the pain of their existence?), safety (are the buildings likely to fall on patients?), readmissions (whoops, better admit them again to boost those profits!) and timely and effective care (did they at least pretend to treat the patients quickly?) when calculating these prestigious star ratings.
Austin's Medical Marvels:
Five Stars
- Ascension Seton hospitals in Northwest, Hays, and Williamson: These medical maestros have truly ascended to the peak of healthcare. Their patients are surely singing their praises from the rooftops, or at least, that's what the CMS seems to think.
- Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in Marble Falls: White and scott free of any one-star ratings, these doctors are the bee's knees.
- St. David's Medical and South Austin Medical Centers: Saintly indeed, these hospitals are heavenly... or so the federal government wants you to believe.
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Four Stars
- Ascension Seton Medical Center: Almost at the pinnacle of medical mastery, but not quite. Maybe next time, Ascension, third time's the charm!
- St. David's North Austin and Round Rock Medical Centers: Saint David clearly spread himself too thin, only managing a four-star performance at these establishments.
- Cedar Park Regional Medical Center: Cedar boys and girls gave it a red hot go, but fell just short of the five-star glory.
Three Stars
- Dell Seton Medical Center at the University of Texas: This Dell-ightful establishment might need to upgrade its software and hardware to fix some critical bugs in its system.
- Baylor Scott & White Medical Center Round Rock: Looks like Round Rock needs to shape up to join its Marble Falls cousin in the big leagues.
Two Stars
- Christus Santa Rosa Hospital San Marcos: Christus crying, this hospital is water under the bridge, better luck pleasing the feds next time!
One Star
- No local hospitals: Looks like Austin's hospitals are all above-average, no winners of the booby prize this time.
Some hospitals, like the kid who forgot their homework, didn't have enough information available to receive a star ranking. These include the Baylor Scott & White hospitals that clearly have something to hide, and various Ascension Seton hospitals that are surely ascending to something, but not to five stars anytime soon.
Read More: Which hospitals are the best in Austin? See the U.S. News & World Report rankings to find out which of these medical marvels made the cut.
Read more: 6 Austin-area hospitals earn a 5-star rating. See which ones made the list