More Hospitals Penalized for 30-Day Readmission Rates

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently imposed their 2020 penalties on more than 2,500 hospitals across the United States for failing to reduce their 30-day readmission rates across a variety of penalizable conditions. This means that 83% of non-exempt hospitals will receive a lower payment for each Medicare patient they treat and the total cost to those hospitals will be $563 million. Critics of the penalty system, which began 2012, question the wisdom of imposing these fines, how it may affect patient care and if the program is having the desired impact. Some believe that hospitals are finding ways to avoid readmitting patients who need care just to avoid the financial repercussions. While some studies have found that this program may be associated with increased mortality, others have not been able to identify such a link. Hospitals argue that many factors, such as the quality of data sets being used, risk adjustments and the fragility of patients, can affect readmissions rates.