The Federal Gov’t Penalizes Doctors and Hospital for long stays

by admin on 01/26/2017 7:30 AM

But then the push to discharging early, creates more readmissions which the gov’t also penalizes.

CMS penalized 2,597 hospitals in FY2017 on account of unnecessary readmissions. This year the CMS under HRRP will withhold $528 million in payments in 2017– an all-time high and an increase of about $108 million from FY 2016. New evidence-based research is coming out every day on recommendations to help reduce unnecessary readmissions. But what can a hospital to do prevent unnecessary readmissions? 

One in five hospital discharges is complicated by an adverse event within 30 days and this often leads to visits to the emergency departments and readmissions. Research suggests that anywhere between 44% and 76% of hospital readmissions are thought to be preventable. Not only do readmissions occur frequently but they are costly. MedPac has estimated that hospital readmissions cost about $15 billion to Medicare.

The federal law known as the IMPACT Act, is now in effect and has resulted in reduced payments to hospitals that have a higher than average readmission rate for acute myocardial infarction (AMI), heart failure and pneumonia patients. It includes chroníc obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and patients admitted for elective total knee arthroplásty (TKA) and total hip arthroplásty (THA). The IMPACT Act also brings five additional quality measures and five new things that must be added to the admission assessment.

The Government continues to search for new ways to save money by putting Doctors and Hospitals in a “Strait Jacket.” A small error in either direction reduces their fees and adds to the federal treasury. It continues their efforts to deprofessionalize physicians and taint the taint the hospital industry.

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Government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem.

– Ronald Reagan