Home Health & Hospice Week

CMS continues to shine a spotlight on hospital readmission rates, and the focus could help facilitate your relationship with hospitals. In 2009, "national thirty-day readmissions rates for heart attack, heart failure, and pneumonia did not show remarkable changes from their 2005-2008 rates," CMS says in a release about additions and updates to the Hospital Compare website. The riskadjusted rates are 19.9 percent, 24.7 percent, and 18.3 percent, respectively.

Home care's ability to keep patients from avoidable readmissions could be a big selling point to hospitals in the current environment, experts say.