Rethinking the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program

This blog post and accompanying PDF article provide an overview of the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) and the American Hospital Association's (AHA's) rationale for advocating for policy modifications. As part of the piece, the authors encourage the inclusion of only avoidable readmissions and only those unplanned readmissions related to the initial hospitalization; they also advocate for risk adjustments that account for patient socioeconomic factors currently excluded from calculations (e.g., education level, income level, geographic region). The authors offer that refinement of the program will help to achieve the desired readmissions reductions without disproportionate penalties for some hospitals. Innovative readmissions reduction approaches employed in three hospitals and their results are included.