Medicare Penalizing Most Hospitals For Patient Readmission Rates

Four out of five Georgia hospitals are set to receive Medicare penalties for having too many patients returning within a month of their discharge.

The readmission penalties, levied under the Affordable Care Act, are meant to encourage hospitals to pay closer attention to what happens to patients after discharge.

Kaiser Health News reported Thursday that Medicare is punishing 2,573 hospitals nationally, just two dozen short of what it did last year, according to federal records. Starting in October, the federal government will cut those hospitals’ payments by as much as 3 percent for a year.