NEW PUBLIC REPORTING PROGRAM HAS THREE COMPONENTS TO MEET ASCS WHERE THEY ARE ON THEIR PATH TO FULL TRANSPARENCY
In preparation for 2026, Leapfrog proposes a comprehensive program redesign to vastly increase access to patient safety and quality ratings for consumers and purchasers and make it easier to compare ASCs side-by-side. The goal of the Leapfrog ASC Survey--as well as the Leapfrog Hospital Survey-- has always been the same: give the public meaningful, independent ratings to help them make informed decisions about where to receive their health care. We have struggled to achieve this goal with the Leapfrog ASC Survey. This programmatic redesign aims to give consumers and purchasers the same level of visibility into ASCs that Leapfrog has given them into hospitals, while making it easier for ASCs to participate in Leapfrog’s voluntary, annual Survey.
Leapfrog’s ASC Public Reporting Program is the result of a year of intense engagement with our Ambulatory Surgery Center Advisory Committee, outreach to ASC networks and health systems, meetings with leading accrediting organizations including the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC) and The Joint Commission (TJC), and close consultation with Leapfrog’s community of authoritative experts in performance improvement, including our national expert panels, the research team at Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality and, above all, our constituency of purchasers, employers, and consumer advocates.
Key Components of Leapfrog’s New ASC Public Reporting Program:
- Make CMS ASCQR Data More Accessible to Consumers and Purchasers - Score and Publicly Report 12 Measures from the CMS ASCQR Program on Leapfrog’s Public Reporting Website for All ASCs Regardless of Participation in the Leapfrog ASC Survey 2.0
- Highlight National Accreditation Standards and Replace Some Reporting Requirements - Score and Publicly Report 5 Measures Aligned with AAAHC and TJC Accreditation Standards on Leapfrog’s Public Reporting Website for All ASCs that Submit Accreditation Certificate Regardless of Participation in the Leapfrog ASC Survey 2.0
- Maintain Measures of Utmost Importance to Consumers and Purchasers – Score and Publicly Report 8 Additional Measures for ASCs that Voluntarily Submit the Leapfrog ASC Survey 2.0
Leapfrog invites additional comments on ideas to further our mission of informing health care decisions during this open public comment period.
A Vision of Progressive Transparency to Drive Patient Outcomes
Taken together, these changes will vastly enhance public access to meaningful, independent ratings of ASCs, while giving ASCs the visibility they deserve to consumers making important decisions about where to have their procedure performed. Additionally, as participation in ASC Survey 2.0 grows, ASCs themselves will benefit from more robust benchmarking, facilitating new opportunities for quality improvement that results in safe, high quality patient outcomes.
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Make CMS ASCQR Data More Accessible to Consumers and Purchasers Beginning in 2026, Leapfrog will score and publicly report 12 measures (See Appendix I) from the CMS Ambulatory Surgery Center Quality Reporting (ASCQR) Program on our Public Reporting website to ensure that patients and family caregivers have a place to easily search for and compare facilities. ASCs will be scored using benchmarks established in previous years of the Leapfrog ASC Survey and their progress will be publicly reported on a four-level scale ranging from Achieved the Standard (best score) to Limited Achievement (worst score). Visitors to Leapfrog’s public reporting website will be able to select up to three facilities to compare side-by-side. |
Highlight National Accreditation Standards and Replace Some Reporting Requirements Beginning in 2026, ASCs with active accreditation through the AAAHC or TJC’s Deemed Status programs will be scored and publicly reported as Achieved the Standard (best score) for five (5) measures (See Appendix II) that previously required additional data collection to report performance via the Leapfrog ASC Survey. Visitors to Leapfrog’s public reporting website will be able to see achievement of these important patient safety standards that ASCs have earned through their rigorous accreditation process. |
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Maintain Measures of Utmost Importance to Purchasers and Employers ASCs will continue to be urged to voluntarily submit the Leapfrog ASC Survey 2.0 via the free and secure ASC Dashboard by Leapfrog’s purchaser and employer members, so that Leapfrog can score and publicly report on eight (8) measures not nationally available by any other source (see Appendix III). Visitors to our public reporting website will be able to see and compare ASC’s progress towards achieving these robust, evidence-based patient safety and quality standards, identify ASCs that have earned Leapfrog’s prestigious Top ASC Award, and quickly identify those ASCs that have demonstrated full transparency through voluntary reporting. |
50% Reduction Staff Time for Data Collection In response to feedback from ASCs that while many value the opportunity to highlight their volumes to consumers and purchasers, for some access to this data is a barrier for participation, the surgical volume reporting will be optional in 2026. Leapfrog anticipates that ASCs will need to commit about 10 hours of staff time for data collection and reporting; this is a 50% reduction from previous years. ASCs participating in the Leapfrog ASC Survey since 2020 that have processes and structures for data collection already in place may require even fewer staff hours. |
ASC Scoring and Public Reporting
For detailed information on Leapfrog’s scoring algorithms used to place ASCs into performance categories (e.g., Achieved the Standard, which represents the best performance) for the purposes of public reporting, please visit our ASC Scoring and Public Reporting tutorial website.