A new bill signed by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn last week establishes a hospital licensing fee that will pay for the state to create a quality reporting system and improve hospital inspections, according to a Crain's Chicago Business report.
The law creates a fee of $55 per patient bed that is expected to raise $1.7 million annually. More than half of the money collected from hospitals will go to fund the reporting system, which was established in 2005 but never funded. It mandates that hospitals report adverse events to find patterns and improve healthcare. This fee funds that reporting system.
About 30 percent of the funds will go toward developing new quality and safety measures, and the remaining 20 percent will go toward addressing patient complaints, according to the report.
"We fully support this law to help the [Department of Public Health] have the necessary resources to implement the law as part of an overall framework for quality improvement and patient safety initiatives," Danny Chun, vice president of corporate communications and marketing for the Illinois Hospital Association, told Crain's.
Safety net and small rural hospitals are exempt from the fee.
More Articles on Quality Reporting:
EMR Facilitates PQRS Reporting to CMS
3M Health Information Systems Introduces Quality Services Program for Hospitals
Study: Public Reporting of ICU Outcomes Has Unintended Consequences