The Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) routinely collects administrative data from hospitals and ambulatory (outpatient) surgery centers. Administrative data includes diagnosis and procedure codes, charges and other patient characteristics as reported on the uniform billing form at the time of discharge. It does not include all the clinical information contained in the medical record such as lab results or imaging studies. The data alone, however, does not always present a full picture of a patient's condition, or the intensity or severity of their illness or injury.

To make comparisons more meaningful, this website accounts for differences among each facility’s mix of patients, including the severity of the patient’s condition by using the 3M All Patient Refined Diagnosis Related Group (APR-DRG) risk adjustment system. The data are risk adjusted to minimize the differences in a hospital's patient mix, so that differences in performance are based on the quality of care delivered, rather than the characteristics of the patient population.

Please note that some individual patient factors cannot be accounted for, such as, smoking, diet, obesity and other lifestyle issues.

• Legal Disclaimer
• Facility Disclaimer
• Physician Disclaimer

Legal Disclaimer:

The information contained in this website is intended for those interested in learning more about conditions and procedures performed in Florida’s short term acute care hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers, and does not constitute a professional engagement between the user and any facility or physician. The accuracy of the website, and the information and resources identified by the Agency therein, are not warranted or guaranteed by the Agency for Health Care Administration (Agency), or intended to be legal, health, medical or professional advice but merely conveys general information. We advise that you seek advice from qualified professionals for the most accurate information. You are further encouraged to discuss the information on this website with your physician or primary provider. In no event shall any facility or physician be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this website or its links, even if advised of the possibility of such damage.

Facility Disclaimer:

• All active (open) facilities (inpatient and ambulatory) are shown on the website; however, the data only represents the facility’s cleaned and certified data that is available for the time period reported. All facilities with fewer than 30 cases will be denoted with ‘N/A’ and facilities with zero cases for specific conditions/procedures will be excluded from the results. For a listing of the certification status of the reporting facilities, click here.
• Inpatient facilities reporting less than four quarters (1 year) of data or less than 12 quarters (3 years) of pediatric data are excluded from the results; however, the facility will be listed in the overall results and denoted with ‘N/A’. This may occur when a facility is new.
  
  Facilities excluded from reporting:
  • Closed facilities
  • Long and short term psychiatric facilities
  • VA Hospitals (patient data not reported to AHCA)
  • Inpatient Residential Treatment Facilities (IRTFs)
  • Inpatient Rehabilitation Hospitals
  • Military Hospitals (patient data not reported to AHCA)
• Per Rule 59B-9.011(6) F.A.C., Ambulatory Surgery Centers with fewer than 200 patient visits during a reporting quarter may request an exemption, thus these facilities will be denoted with ‘N/A’ in the overall results. However, facilities with at least one or more quarters of data, that have a mixed reporting of both data and exemptions during four quarters (1 year), will have the available data displayed and will be denoted with asterisks indicating the number of quarters reported.
• There are coding differences between hospitals. Some hospitals code in more extensively than others. While hospitals are allowed to submit up to 31 diagnosis codes, some report on those codes relevant to that specific hospital encounter. Some hospitals report data on all patients, not just the acute care conditions provided on this website. For example, hospitals that submit data on “hospice” patients will show a higher than expected mortality rate.
• It is sometimes difficult to classify diseases accurately. The codes contained in the patient record may not be specific enough to adequately characterize a patient's condition.
• The data is limited to only what occurred during that encounter. It will not reflect any events that occur after the patient was discharged. For example, a patient may have been discharged alive but died two days later.
• The information presented is a snapshot of the data from the most recent available 12-month time period.
• The data does not include observation patients. Observation services are performed in a hospital to evaluate a patient’s condition to determine whether admission is reasonable and medically necessary.
• Differences in comparative hospital performance may be due to many facility-related characteristics. For example, teaching hospitals may have a higher than normal number of patients transferred in from other hospitals. While the risk adjustment methodology used on this website is intended to minimize the impact of this, this should be considered in reviewing the data.
• Practice decisions differ somewhat from physician to physician, and collectively may explain some differences in charges and outcomes across facilities.

Physician Disclaimer:

1. The physician volume data presented is submitted by the hospital and not the individual physician.
2. It is best to consider the surgical volume listed on this website as just one component of the information you should gather to make the best decision for your care. You should also consult with your primary care physician and your health plan provider whenever choosing a surgeon or hospital.
3. It is unclear if there is a relationship between surgeon volume and quality.
4. Limitations:
   • Orthopedics and cardiology are specialties of immense complexity and variety. This data is limited to specific procedures and may include only a portion of work that a physician/surgeon performs.
   • Considering only one year of volume data may not accurately represent a particular physician’s typical annual volume or lifetime volume. They may have taken a sabbatical or a medical leave of absence during the year or may be doing fewer procedures when approaching retirement.
   • It is also difficult to recognize good quality in a young physician who hasn’t been in practice long enough to have performed as many surgeries as older colleagues, but is newly trained with the latest techniques.
   • The volume by individual physician includes all procedures performed in one or more facilities; however, in some cases, their actual volume for that procedure may be understated. This is because the website does not include volume for those physicians that sometimes perform surgery in neighboring states, VA hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers or facilities that closed during or after the reporting period. The website also excludes physicians with inactive licenses.
   • Patients sometimes need several surgical procedures during a hospitalization. The volume data displayed on this website only report on the first procedure listed on the patient record; therefore if a physician performed a procedure that was listed second, third or later on the medical record, the physician would not have been credited with performing it.
   • Physicians who performed less than 10 procedures statewide (for total hip and total knee, this number is combined) were suppressed from the website, thus those physicians who actually perform the procedure may not be displayed.
   • This data does not include information about partial hip replacements, which are often performed to treat conditions other than those treated by total hip replacements.
5. IMPORTANT: The physician volume methodology varies from the Compare Hospitals facility level information as they utilize different coding methodologies thus the totals are not comparable.

Methodology

Glossary

Why the data may differ from provider to provider