Medicare cuts estimated $23M in New Jersey hospital funding

Ever since the Hospital Readmission Rate Program (created as part of the Affordable Care Act) took effect four years ago, hospitals have paid big bucks for failing to pay attention to this key indicator of efficiency.

Zeitler said Shannon is committed to lowering the number of patients it readmits through programs such as its Shannon Care Coordination Program with Angelo State University. Gulf Coast Medical Center in Fort Myers will see a. 71 percent reduction while Cape Coral Hospital will be cut.

The maximum penalty is 3 percent, but the average penalty both nationwide and in Pennsylvania is 0.61 percent.

Palisades Medical Center, which had New Jersey’s highest penalty, at 2.49 percent, evaluates readmissions twice a day, said Ruben Fernandez, its chief nursing officer. It is now expanded to include chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and elective hip or knee replacement, as stated by CMS. The law allows a patient to identify a caregiver and then requires hospitals to do more to train the caregiver for some of the more challenging tasks now performed at home, such as wound care, injections and administration of multiple prescription drugs.

The fines will be applied to Medicare payments when the federal fiscal year begins in October.

Beginning in October, 2,592 hospitals will receive lower payments for Medicare patients that stay in the hospital, whether or not they are readmitted, reported by KHN.

Overall, Medicare’s punishments are slightly less severe than they were last year, both in the amount of the average fine and the number of hospitals penalized. Veterans hospitals, such as the one in East Orange, were exempt. Meanwhile, less than 25% of hospitals in Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota were penalized. As with last year, there will also be penalties, as well as bonuses, based on a variety of quality measures. “Too often, they end up back in the hospital”. About 42 percent will see an increase in penalties, Ms. Montgomery said. She said high Medicare and medical-assistance enrollment means regional hospitals are particularly dependent on the public programs for revenue.

Center in Winnsboro, Louisiana. Patients at the “urban safety-net hospital” come from “a wide spectrum of socioeconomic backgrounds”, she said. In March, the Medicare Payment Advisory Committee, which advises Congress on Medicare issues, recommended altering the readmission penalties. Hospitals with the lowest profit margins were 36 percent more likely to be penalized than those in better financial shape, the essay said.

Aline Holmes, NJHA’s senior vice president, says about two-thirds of the state’s hospitals decreased their readmission rates this year, but others still have a few work to do.

The agency said in the rule that it doesn’t want to hold hospitals to different standards for the outcomes of their patients of low sociodemographic status because it does’t want to “mask potential disparities or minimize incentives to improve the outcomes of disadvantaged populations”.