Industry Note:
In 2013, Hospitals To See Pay Cut For Readmissions
Published on Tue Jul 05, 2011
The proposal that would give hospitals an incentive to line up home care for their discharged patients is now final. In the final rule for the 2012 hospital inpatient prospective payment system, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services implements the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, CMS says in a release. The program will reduce payments beginning in FY 2013 -- for discharges on or after Oct. 1, 2012 -- to certain hospitals that have excess readmissions for certain conditions. The conditions are acute myocardial infarction (or heart attack), heart failure, and pneumonia. More details are in the hospital inpatient PPS final rule released Aug. 1, which has a link at
www.cms.gov/center/hospital.asp.