Taking steps to reduce readmission rates

Editor’s note: Beginning this month, Briefings on Accreditation and Quality (BOAQ) is publishing its articles on a weekly basis. Each week in Accreditation Insider, a new article from that month’s issue of BOAQ will be featured with a link to the article for subscribers to access. At the end of the month, a separate email will be sent to BOAQ subscribers with links to all the stories and the PDF of the full issue. Here is the first article from the October issue of BOAQ.

In August, CMS announced a few changes to the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP), changing how pneumonia readmissions are calculated and making excessive coronary artery bypass grafts readmission punishable. These seemingly small changes are expected to save CMS $538 million by increasing the number of hospitals penalized and the amount they're fined. By the end of 2017, more than half the hospitals in the country will be fined for high 30-day readmission rates according to CMS projections.

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