Sebelius: Criticisms of Five-Star Quality Rating System Need to Be Addressed

Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, acknowledged yesterday that although the Five-Star Quality Rating System is an important tool for consumers, criticisms about its shortcomings need to be addressed.

Speaking at the National Council on Aging and The American Society on Aging annual conference in Chicago, Sebelius said "We need to have some standards; they need to be clear, need to be accurately measured and if everyone ends up being excellent or everyone ends up being failing, so be it. But somehow this sort of bell curve seems to have some inherent flaws."

Critics of the rating system have complained about regulators assigning predetermined percentages of facilities either "excellent" or "failing" grades. Sebelius commented, "The last thing we want to do is have an arbitrary bell curve just for the sake of having a system."

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