Half Of U.S. Hospitals Face Medicare Readmission Penalties

About half of 2,592 hospitals in the United States will receive lower Medicare reimbursement rates for beneficiary stays on or after October 1, 2015 because readmission rates were too high in the past year. The lower reimbursement rate is a penalty imposed by the Medicare Hospital Readmission Reduction Program (HRRP), which began in 2014. More than 90% of the penalized hospitals were also penalized last year.

The fines will be applied to Medicare payments when the federal fiscal year begins in 2014, with the average payment reduction 0.61% per consumer stay. Thirty-eight hospitals received the maximum cut . . .