Why Aren’t Those Hospital Readmission Rates Dropping?

Last week, we took a look at hospital performance – and if the hospital performance programs being utilized by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are having a measurable effect on hospital performance (see Does Measuring Performance Change Performance? and Consumer Star Ratings For Hospitals – It’s Only Going To Get Harder To Earn Those 5 Stars).

What we found is a 3.7% drop in hospital readmission rates for Medicare beneficiaries between 2007 and 2015. And, only 799 out of more than 3,400 hospitals subject to the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program have done well enough in the . . .