Understand Current Policy
Since the Affordable Care Act created the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, hospitals now encounter reduced reimbursement payments for surplus 30-day readmission rates. Reducing unnecessary costs is vital to a hospital’s success. A high-cost risk for hospitals includes high penalties for patient readmission. To avoid unfair readmission policies, hospitals must maintain high-quality care for patients with diseases of high readmission rates. Having greater coordination of care can improve the patient’s overall healing process and therefore reduce hospital readmissions and unfair readmission policies. By understanding the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, your hospital can lower the risk of high readmission penalties.
Identify Patients at High Risk for Readmission
Based on the timing of the readmission, most readmissions after a few days are counted higher than the readmission after a few weeks. These weighted penalties are due to a higher chance of lack of care coordination rather than disease seriousness. Avoiding these high penalty rates can improve the financial burdens of extra patient care and reduce hospital readmissions. Identifying patients with higher readmission risks and providing the proper treatment as long as needed can decrease readmission penalties. With the help of expert medical treatment, hospitals can reduce hospital readmissions. Working together to enhance treatments can better the entire medical industry.
Rewards for a low mortality rate
High-performing hospitals with low mortality rates should have low or reduced penalties. When hospitals have a high mortality rate but low readmissions, they have a lower penalty rate than hospitals with low mortality rates and high readmissions. High-performance and success rates should not have higher penalty rates. Combining the mortality rate and readmission rate can improve fair penalties for many successful hospitals. Other factors should be considered before penalizing hospitals like prescription drug side effects and overall patient health. Outside factors like improper care at the fault of the patient should not count toward the penalty.
