Things Fall Apart: Preventing High Readmission Rates Among Homeless Adults

Excerpt

Recent changes in Medicare policy have spurred attention to and efforts to prevent hospital readmissions. Since October 2012, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) established a rule to financially penalize hospitals that are found to have an excess 30-day readmission rate for select conditions, via the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP). To calculate the excess readmission rate, CMS compares the rate of readmission for the selected conditions to those of other hospitals, after adjusting for the age and disease severity of readmitted patients and the hospital’s overall patient mix. When applied, the penalties affect all of the hospital’s Medicare admissions, not just those that result in readmission. …