Under Trump, Hospitals Face Same Penalties Embraced By Obama

This article outlines the findings of the newly-released 2018 Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program penalties. This year, 2,573 hospitals -- or 80 percent of hospitals included in the analysis -- failed to meet the established thresholds for preventable readmissions across six conditions: myocardial infarction, heart failure, pneumonia, chronic obstructive lung disease, hip or knee replacements and coronary artery bypass graft surgery. This is 24 fewer hospitals than in 2017; 174 hospitals penalized that year did not suffer penalties in 2018.

In addition to commentary on the healthcare community's success and challenges in addressing readmissions as well as on the current political climate, the article includes a listing of penalties and the associated percent change by by hospital between 2017 and 2018. Values for readmissions by state are also included. Only four states -- South Dakota, Idaho, Montana and Oregon -- saw fewer than half of their hospitalized penalized by CMS. Ninety percent or more hospitals in 11 states -- and 95 percent or more in Arkansas, New Jersey, Delaware and West Virginia -- were penalized this year under HRRP. The average penalty across all hospitals was 0.73 percent (of a possible 3.0 percent total).

Past Kaiser News Network articles on HRRP penalties can be found here (Year 3) and here (Year 4).