Penalties for readmission.PO Day 133

So I told you about the Hospital Compare site in Post 130. It sounded so benign and like the whole purpose was to be supportive of hospital and patient alike. It turns out the government gives and the government takes away.

Compiling all those statistics about readmissions to the hospital and educating patients and hospital staff to recognize little problems before they turn into big ones to prevent those readmissions has a more punitive  outcome. Since 2010 data has been being compiled about readmittance rates for patients who were in hospital for heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia. Hospitals are fined for patients who are readmitted within 30 days of discharge. Now hip and knee replacement surgery patients have been added to the list.

Hospitals can be penalized as much as 3% of their medicare charges. 2610 hospitals across 29 states will be penalized these year. More  hospitals are being fined this year because of the addition of the joint replacement surgeries even though they have reduced the readmission rates for other conditions. Hospitals are in a "catch 22" situation as the financial gain of readmission outpaces the fines for too high a rate of readmissison. What to do?

I suppose eventually shoulder replacement surgery will be added to the list of conditions for which hospitals can be fined. I am so glad that has not happened yet or I would be one of those patients who are part of the problem! In some weird way I do feel like a "bad" patient for developing complications that  put me back in the hospital. I am just glad that at this stage I don't count.