The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently implemented the star rating system for hospitals as an overall measure of quality and safety. Although studies have found a correlation between the star ratings and clinical outcomes, this study found that high star ratings were more likely to be given to specialty or critical access hospitals. These hospitals are exempt from some of the CMS quality measure reporting requirements, and thus they did not report the same data as lower-rated hospitals. Other studies have also called into question the methodology behind the star rating system.