Hospital Readmissions

Hospitals with Health Equity Factors Face Value-Based Penalties

July 6, 2023 - Hospitals with more medically complex patients, uncompensated care, and patients who live alone are more likely to receive a penalty under CMS value-based payment programs, according to a new study calling for change to the programs. The study from the Federation of American Hospitals and Dobson DaVanzo and Associates, LLC suggests value-based...


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Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease See Higher Hospital Readmission Rates

by Victoria Bailey

Readmission rates and episode costs were higher among patients with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD), suggesting hospitals should prioritize reducing avoidable hospitalizations...

Accounting for Observation Stays Shrunk Hospital Readmission Reductions

by Victoria Bailey

The decrease in readmission rates associated with the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) was smaller after accounting for observation stays, indicating that the value-based program may be...

Are Readmission Rates The Best Measure of Hospital Quality?

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Readmission rates are one of the top measures of hospital quality, with most hospitals even putting their revenue on the line if they have excess hospital readmissions. However, a group of doctors...

Social Risk Adjustment Reduced HRRP Penalties for Safety-Net Hospitals

by Victoria Bailey

Using social risk adjustment in Medicare’s Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) helped reduce differences in risk-adjusted readmissions and penalties between safety-net hospitals and...

Local Post-Acute Care Resources Tied to Hospital Readmissions, Pay

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Hospitals that had more local access to post-acute care services, such as primary care physicians and skilled nursing facility (SNF) beds, had lower thirty-day hospital readmission rates compared to...

Stratifying Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program Improved Equity

by Victoria Bailey

Implementing stratification within the Medicare Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) helped improve health equity by decreasing penalty rates for safety-net hospitals, rural hospitals, and...

Provider Collaboration Needed to Drive Patient Experience, ACO Success

by Sarai Rodriguez

In order to ensure accountable care organization (ACO) and patient experience success, providers must collaborate across the continuum of care, suggested a recent study out of the Ohio State...

Study: Consecutive Penalties for Preventable Hospital Readmissions

by Victoria Bailey

More than 1,200 hospitals have faced penalties for preventable hospital readmissions every year for the last 10 years since the launch of the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP), according...

Nurse Staffing Shortage Drives Hospital Readmissions, High Spending

by Jill McKeon

Medicare spent an estimated $5 billion on hospital readmissions in 2018, which could be partially explained by nurse staffing shortages, a recently rereleased Government Accountability Office (GAO)...

Community Health Workers Help to Drop Hospital Readmission Rates

by Jill McKeon

The Community Care Transitions (C-CAT) clinical trial, recently published in JAMA Network Open, matched Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) patients insured by accountable care organizations with...

Home Discharge Program Prevents Hospital Readmission For ED Patients

by Hannah Nelson

An at-home discharge service piloted at Penn Medicine successfully prevented hospital readmission in nine out of 10 emergency department patients, according to a study published in Healthcare that...

Non-Coronavirus Hospital Admissions Drop Again

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Hospitals are facing another setback as non-coronavirus hospital admissions drop yet again after months of recovery, according to a recent analysis. Hospital admissions for reasons other than COVID-19...

CDC: 1 in 11 COVID-19 Inpatients Experience a Hospital Readmission

by Jacqueline LaPointe

With the number of positive COVID-19 cases continuing to rise in the US, providers should prepare for the potential for at least 9 percent of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 to experience a hospital...

Most Facilities in Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program Penalized

by Jacqueline LaPointe

The majority of facilities participating in the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) in fiscal year (FY) 2021 have been penalized for readmitting too many patients according to CMS...

Home Hospital Reduces Costs, Readmission for Acutely Ill Patients

by Emily Sokol, MPH

Unnecessary hospitalizations are costly and are often predictors of even more expensive readmissions. So many value-based contracts push for creative solutions that keep patients out of the hospital...

New Quality Measure to Evaluate Psychiatric Hospital Readmissions

by Samantha McGrail

University of Florida Health (UF) researchers have partnered with the Health Services Advisory Group (HSAG) to complete a new quality measure for CMS to evaluate care in psychiatric hospitals...

High Quality Hospitals Treat Less Medicare Advantage Enrollees

by Samantha McGrail

Medicare Advantage enrollees had a 2.8 percentage point lower probability of being admitted to a highly rated hospital compared to traditional Medicare enrollees, according to a report from Brown...

Targeting Superutilizers Does Not Impact Hospital Readmissions

by Jacqueline LaPointe

Just five percent of the population accounts for about one-half of annual healthcare spending, but interventions that target these super-utilizers do little to impact hospital readmissions, according...

CMS Value-Based Purchasing Not Behind Hospital Readmission Decline

by Jacqueline LaPointe

A value-based purchasing program run by CMS has been credited with the drop in 30-day hospital readmission rates through 2014. But a new analysis led by researchers at Harvard Medical School offers an...