Medicare targets readmissions

Medicare will soon dish out less money to hospitals that have a higher-than-expected rate of patients who return to the hospital within a month of being discharged, especially those with high rates of pneumonia and heart-failure patients, according to California Watch. Many hospitals have criticized the change, saying it is likely to most hurt inner-city hospitals and other hospitals that are already struggling to make ends meet.

According to the latest set of U.S. Health and Human Services data, readmission rates for patients experiencing heart failure or pneumonia is no higher than the national average at Enloe Medical Center. However, readmission rates for pneumonia patients are higher than the national average at Oroville Hospital.

“We continually evaluate our readmission rates and have taken measures to improve them,” said Shanna Roelofson, director of marketing at Oroville Hospital. “We may have higher than the national average for readmission rates for patients experiencing pneumonia, but we also statistically trend toward having better than the national average for lower mortality rates in pneumonia.”