VA Quality Information on Care Compare

VA data for some quality measures are also found on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Care Compare website. Care Compare helps people make decisions about where to get health care and encourages hospitals and healthcare providers to improve their quality of care.

Public transparency is not new for VA. Care Compare first started reporting data for VA medical centers in 2010 and this process is ongoing. VA and CMS collaborate closely on information shared on Care Compare so VA can be as open as possible with Veterans and the public about VA’s quality performance across many areas.

Information from Access to Care and Care Compare provide a comprehensive view of VA’s quality performance.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Care Compare is an on-line tool to find and compare different types of Medicare providers - like doctors, hospitals, and nursing homes. On Care Compare you can:
- Find information about providers and facilities based on your individual needs.
- Get helpful resources to choose your healthcare providers.
- Make informed choices about where you get your health care.
- Look at additional quality measures not shown on Access to Care. As much as possible, VA tries not to duplicate too many measures on both sites.
- View "overall star ratings" and "patient survey" star ratings for your VA medical center as well as for non-VA healthcare providers in your area. These star ratings are not shown on ATC.
- Compare the quality performance of your local VA medical center to the performance of other specific non-VA hospitals in your neighborhood. On ATC you can see how VA Medical Centers’ quality performance compares to the community overall, but you cannot see performance for individual non-VA healthcare providers.
- Learn about the quality ratings of non-VA health care providers in your area – useful if your VA medical center refers you to non-VA providers for care.
- Access additional details on measures, with the capability to download specific data sets.
- While many metrics on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) Care Compare site apply to all adult patients, there are some metrics which only apply to Medicare beneficiaries (e.g., age 65 and older). Metrics reported for VAMCs are based on data from Veterans receiving care at the VA, regardless of whether or not they are eligible for Medicare.
- There are some cases where the same measures are shown on both sites (e.g., legally required on Access to Care).
Where VA is unable to provide information for some measures on Care Compare, there are clear reasons, including:
- VA medical centers do not offer care services or functions related to that measure (e.g., obstetrics care).
- VA does not have the capability to collect certain information related to that measure (e.g., technical limitations that affect data collection).
- Not enough volume of data available to submit to Care Compare.

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VA Quality Information on Care Compare

Frequently Asked Questions

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