Why hospital prices vary widely even when prices vary by miles
A new federal regulation requiring U.S. hospitals to disclose all prices has revealed how much rates vary from hospital to hospital, even if they are only a few miles apart.
More than a third of New Jersey’s 79 hospitals received two stars or less in the most recent rating from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Only four hospitals received the highest rating of five stars.
A dozen New Jersey hospitals received four stars, 16 received three stars, 17 received two stars, and 12 received one star.
The overall star rating summarizes data on key factors such as readmissions and deaths following heart attacks or pneumonia. The overall rating combines measures from five quality areas – mortality, safety of care, readmission, patient experience and timely effective care – into a single rating.
The overall rating shows how well each hospital performed on the quality criteria compared to other hospitals in the United States. The more stars, the better a hospital performed on the quality criteria.
NJ’s Hospital Quality Ratings
Five stars
- Hackensack University Medical Center
- Hunterdon Medical Center, Raritan Township
- Morristown Medical Center
- St. Luke’s Warren Hospital, Phillipsburg
Four stars
- Atlanticare Regional Medical Center – City Campus, Atlantic City
- Chilton Medical Center, Pompton Plains
- Deborah Heart and Lung Center, Browns Mills
- Englewood Hospital and Medical Center
- Hackensack Meridian Health Pascack Valley Medical, Westwood
- Hackettstown Medical Center
- Newton Medical Center
- Overlook Medical Center, Summit
- St. Peter’s University Hospital, New Brunswick
- Shore Medical Center, Somers Point
- Princeton University Hospital in Plainsboro
- Valley Hospital, Ridgewood
More: Is your nursing home on the list? Many in Central Jersey receive a poor rating from the federal government
Three stars
- Bayshore Medical Center, Holmdel
- Cape Regional Medical Center, Cape May Courthouse
- Capital Health Medical Center-Hopewell, Pennington
- Cooper University Hospital, Camden
- Holy Name Medical Center, Teaneck
- Inspira Medical Center, Mullica Hill
- Jersey Shore University Medical Center, Neptune
- JFK Medical Center, Edison
- Monmouth Medical Center, Long Branch
- Ocean Medical Center, Brick
- Riverview Medical Center, Red Bank
- St. Claire’s Hospital – Denville Campus
- St. Mary’s General Hospital, Passaic
- St. Michael’s Medical Center, Newark
- Southern Ocean Medical Center, Manahawkin
- Virtua Mount Holly Hospital
Two stars
- Carepoint Health – Bayonne Medical Center
- Carepoint Health – Christ Hospital, Jersey City
- Centrastate Medical Center, Freehold
- Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center, Livingston
- Hackensack Meridian Health – Mountainside Medical
- Inspira Medical Center, Vineland
- Jefferson Stratford Hospital, Stratford
- Jersey City Medical Center
- Newark Beth Israel Medical Center
- Palisades Medical Center, North Bergen
- Raritan Bay Medical Center, Perth Amboy
- Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, New Brunswick
- Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Hamilton
- Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Rahway
- St. Joseph’s University Hospital, Paterson
- Virtua Willingboro Hospital, Willingboro
- West Jersey Hospital, Voorhees
One star
- Capital Health Regional Medical Center, Trenton
- Carepoint Health – Hoboken University Medical Center
- Carewell Health Medical Center, East Orange
- Clara Maass Medical Center, Belleville
- Community Medical Center, Toms River
- Hudson Regional Medical Center, Secaucus
- Monmouth Medical Center – South Campus, Lakewood
- Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital – Somerset, Somerville
- University Hospital, Newark
- Trinitas Regional Medical Center, Elizabeth
- VA New Jersey Health System, East Orange
- Virtua Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Camden
The following specialty hospitals were not rated in the survey, updated July 31: Cornerstone Behavioral Health Hospital of Union County, Berkeley Heights; Aspen Hills Healthcare Center, Pemberton; Ramapo Ridge Behavioral Health Hospital, Wyckoff; Essex County Hospital Center, Cedar Grove; Hackensack Meridian Health Carrier Clinic, Belle Mead; University Behavioral Health Care, Piscataway; Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, Greystone Park; Ancora Psychiatric Hospital, Hammonton; Children’s Specialized Hospital, New Brunswick; Weisman Children’s Rehabilitation Hospital, Marlton; Northbrook Behavioral Health Hospital, Blackwood; Bergen New Bridge Medical Center, Paramus; Hackensack Meridian LTACH, Perth Amboy; Summit Oaks Hospital, Summit; Trenton Psychiatric Hospital; Hudson County Meadowview Psychiatric Hospital, Secaucus; Hampton Behavioral Health Center, Westhampton and St. Barnabas Behavioral Health Center, Toms River.
Only one hospital in Central Jersey, Hunterdon Medical Center, received the highest rating.
“Hunterdon Medical Center is proud to be recognized as one of America’s Best Hospitals and one of four hospitals in New Jersey to receive a five-star rating from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. At Hunterdon Health, we strive for excellence in quality of care every day, and these ratings demonstrate that we are achieving our goal of excellent patient care and treatment,” said Patrick Gavin, president and CEO of Hunterdon Health, in a statement. “Receiving this recognition year after year validates our ongoing commitment to patient safety and is a testament to our dedicated physicians, nurses and staff who work at Hunterdon Health.”
Hospitals that did not receive the highest ratings say that while the ratings are not the only indicator of health care quality, efforts to improve them are ongoing.
“National ratings such as those from Medicare are important measures of health care quality, but they are not the only measures used when looking at overall quality and patient safety. Continually measuring outcomes and leveraging comparative benchmarking data also helps us in our improvement efforts,” a RWJBarnabas Health spokesperson said in a statement. “We are currently focused on monitoring and improving in key areas such as patient safety, experience and mortality rates. As we continue to make improvements in these areas, our overall scores and ratings will also continue to improve. As always, we are committed to a culture of continuous quality improvement and are committed to ensuring our patients receive the highest quality medical care.”
In a patient survey of 79 hospitals, none received a five-star rating and only four were rated four stars.
In the patient survey, 31 clinics were rated with three stars, 23 received two stars and two received one star.
The patient survey was developed from a patient experience of care survey called the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey. The survey asks a random sample of recently discharged patients about their experiences with hospital care and assesses, among other things, communication with doctors and nurses, responsiveness of hospital staff, hospital cleanliness, hospital quietness, communication about medications, discharge information, transition of care, overall rating of the hospital, and willingness to recommend the hospital.
For more details on these and other hospital ratings, visit the federal agency’s website at cms.gov.
For more details on these and other hospital ratings, visit the federal agency’s website at cms.gov.
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