Medicare Hospital Readmissions: Issues, Policy Options and PPACA
(2010, September 21st). Medicare Hospital Readmissions: Issues, Policy Options and PPACA. (R40972). Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service.
Abstract
On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed into law comprehensive health care reform legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA; P.L. 111-148), as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (HCERA; P.L. 111-152). The legislation contains a number of provisions that make changes to Medicare. Among these are provisions intended to reduce preventable hospital readmissions by reducing Medicare payments to certain hospitals with relatively high preventable readmissions rates. Other provisions include demonstrations and pilots that test reforms to the Medicare payment system for hospitals and other providers. And still others test improvements to patient care for people with chronic illnesses during the initial hospital stay, as patients transition out of the hospital, and while patients reside in home, community-based, Medicare post-acute care, and long-term care settings. Some service delivery and financing reform strategies have the potential to improve the quality of care delivered to Medicare beneficiaries with chronic conditions, and may even reduce hospital readmission rates. Although savings from reducing readmissions may be considerable, this potential depends on the effectiveness of the design and implementation of proposals to reduce them (abstract from p. 2 of report).
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