How to Designate Your Institution as a “Birthing-Friendly” Hospital
By: Andy Combs, MD, PhD
In a press release last month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the launch of a long-awaited “Birthing-Friendly” designation on its publicly-facing Care Compare tool, a user-friendly online platform that helps patients find and compare different types of Medicare providers.
This year, the “Birthing-Friendly” designation indicates that a hospital or health system has self-attested that it participates in a state or national perinatal quality-improvement collaborative and is implementing maternal safety bundles. Institutions who earn this designation will receive a pink “Birthing-Friendly” badge that will be displayed when users search for hospitals in their area. In subsequent years, CMS intends to add additional requirements for hospitals to be listed as “Birthing-Friendly.” This initiative is the latest in a series of actions CMS and the Biden-Harris administration has taken in an effort to advance maternity care quality, safety, and equity.
The “Birthing-Friendly” designation provides an incentive for hospitals to participate in perinatal quality collaboratives, which SMFM has identified as a critical component to a comprehensive response to addressing the nation’s maternal mortality crisis. We hope you will join SMFM in spreading the word to your colleagues and networks about earning the “Birthing-Friendly” badge.
To ensure that your institution receives a “Birthing-Friendly” badge, follow the steps below:
Visit Medicare.gov/care-compare to browse the Care Compare tool and find out whether your hospital(s) are designated as “Birthing-Friendly.”
Click on Hospitals.
Enter your ZIP code or city.
“Birthing-Friendly” hospitals are indicated by a pink icon next to the hospital’s name (or just below it).
While you’re there, take note of hospitals’ overall star rating and patient survey rating.
If you don’t see the pink icon next to your hospital, talk to your department leadership and hospital administration about what you need to do to earn it (it’s a very low bar - if you don’t have it, you should!).
Click on your hospital name for details of the components of your hospital’s star rating.
Scroll down and click on the “Maternal Health” and “Timely & Effective Care” categories for some interesting data you might not know.
On the Care Compare main page, click on Doctors & Clinicians and find yourself or your group.
Explore how much information patients can learn about you with this tool.
The amount of detail provided in this section depends on the volume of Medicare billing you do. For many OBs and MFMs, this is scant, so most will not have quality metrics displayed.
If you have any questions about the “Birthing-Friendly” designation, engaging with your state’s perinatal quality collaborative, or implementing maternal safety bundles, please reach out to Anna Hall, SMFM’s Senior Coordinator, Practice and Policy (ahall@smfm.org).
C. Andrew Combs, MD, PhD, is an MFM with more than 30 years of experience and a national expert on obstetric quality and safety. He is currently the Senior Advisor on MFM Clinical Quality for the Pediatrix Center for Research, Education, Quality and Safety and is the immediate past chair of the SMFM Patient Safety and Quality Committee.