DaVita Centers Top Government's Five-Star Quality Rating System

At DaVita Kidney Care, providing quality care to our patients is without question our highest priority. Not only do we say it, we live it every day. That’s why we are pleased with the recognition of our outstanding performance in clinical quality and outcomes in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Five-Star rating results.

In 2020, DaVita outperformed the rest of the industry combined with a higher percentage of centers rated three-, four- and five-stars for the seventh year in a row.

Because our incredible care teams strive to better our patients’ clinical outcomes by caring for the whole patient, this news comes as no surprise. Receiving the CMS’s stamp of approval for a majority of our centers is a true honor and we’ll continue to work hard we’ll continue to work hard at maintaining our industry-leading clinical outcomes.

What is the CMS Five-Star Quality Rating System and why is it important?

The Five-Star Quality Rating System was created as a way to help patients decide where they want to receive healthcare by providing more transparency about dialysis center performance. The rating system measures dialysis centers on seven different quality measures and compiles these scores into an overall rating. Stars are awarded for each center’s performance. We applaud CMS’ intentions of making clinical quality more accessible to dialysis patients and will continue to work with them to improve these measures.

How can the new rating system help patients choose a dialysis provider?

Choosing a dialysis provider is an important decision. As the industry leader in clinical quality, we hope these ratings will help people with kidney disease make the choice that best suit their particular health and lifestyle needs and enables them to get the care they deserve.

What is the Quality Incentive Program (QIP)?

QIP is part of Medicare's ESRD program aimed at improving the quality of care provided to Medicare patients. It was designed and passed into law in part to be the nation's first pay-for-performance quality incentive program. CMS describes QIP as a "first-of-its-kind program [that] provides the ESRD community with the opportunity to enhance the overall quality of care that ESRD patients receive as they battle this devastating disease."

The ESRD QIP reduces payments to ESRD facilities that do not meet or exceed certain performance standards. DaVita also distinguished itself in reducing the proportion of low-performing centers in rural and low-income counties. At the release of that last report, DaVita had achieved a 21 percent reduction in rural and low income centers that missed the top clinical tier since the program’s inception in 2012—the rest of the industry saw a 24 percent increase during that same time period. This is a significant measure because rural and low-income areas present the greatest challenges to delivering top-tier clinical results.