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Aiming for fewer hospital u-turns: the Medicare hospital readmission reduction program
Aiming for fewer hospital u-turns: the Medicare hospital readmission reduction program
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Series Title(s):
- Issue brief (Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation)
- Author(s):
- Boccuti, Cristina, author
Casillas, Giselle, author - Contributor(s):
- Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, issuing body.
- Publication:
- Menlo Park, CA : Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, January 2015
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Medicare -- statistics & numerical data
Patient Readmission -- economics
Patient Readmission -- statistics & numerical data
Patient Readmission -- trends
United States
United States.
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (U.S.) - Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- For Medicare patients, hospitalizations can be stressful; even more so when they result in subsequent readmissions to the hospital. While many readmissions cannot and should not be prevented, researchers have found wide variation in hospitals' readmission rates, suggesting that patients admitted to certain hospitals are more likely to experience readmissions compared to other hospitals. A number of studies show that hospitals can engage in several activities to lower their rate of readmissions, such as clarifying patient discharge instructions, coordinating with post-acute care providers and patients' primary care physicians, and reducing medical complications during patients' initial hospital stays. Medicare--through Congressional direction and Administration initiatives--has started implementing incentives to reduce hospital readmissions. One example, and the focus of this Issue Brief, is the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program (HRRP) which penalizes hospitals with relatively higher rates of Medicare readmissions. Applying to most inpatient hospitals, the Department of Health and Human Services states that the HRRP will play a role in its new goals to tie an increasing share of traditional Medicare payments to quality or value in the coming years. This Issue Brief describes the HRRP, analyzes the impact of this program on Medicare patients and hospitals, and discusses several issues that have been raised regarding its implementation. While other studies have focused primarily on penalties imposed on specific hospitals, this Issue Brief provides additional analysis on the extent to which Medicare beneficiaries stay in hospitals with relatively high penalties and national trends in beneficiary readmission rates.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (9 pages, 1 unnumbered page))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 101670588 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101670588