Readmissions keep hospitals’ bottom lines in the black. It’s a performance metric that’s as qualitatively difficult to interpret as it is quantitatively simplistic to measure. It’s also a highlight of Medicare comparison data between acute hospitals. The examination of Medicare claims data based upon hospital admission rates is extremely important in this new era of under-the-microscope scrutiny by the Obama administration as a cost-containment mechanism.

And the stakes for hospitals couldn’t be any higher; Congress and the Obama administration are considering financial penalties for hospitals with high rates of readmissions and incentives for those with low rates. Critics lambaste hospitals with high readmit rates as nothing but income-streaming consistencies; advocates (especially those at public hospitals) support such logistics as safety net care which needs its own pool of funding.

Pretty interesting data at the CMS site. Caution, though. It’s easy to personalize interpretation of that data. | LINK

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