A Path Forward on Medicare Readmissions.
N Engl J Med. 2013 Mar 6;
Authors: Joynt KE, Jha AK
Abstract
October 1, 2012, marked the beginning of the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP), an ambitious effort by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to reduce the frequency of rehospitalization of Medicare patients. The program consists primarily of financial penalties levied against hospitals with readmission rates that are deemed to be excessive. To assign penalties, CMS calculated expected readmission rates for all hospitalizations for acute myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, and pneumonia from July 2008 through June 2011, adjusting for age, sex, and coexisting conditions such as diabetes and hypertension. These expected rates were then compared with the actual . . .
PMID: 23465069 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]