Characteristics of Hospitals Receiving Penalties Under the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program

Abstract

To the Editor: The federal Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) took effect on October 1, 2012, the first day of fiscal year 2013. Under this program, using claims data from July 2008 through June 2011, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) determined, for each eligible US hospital, whether their readmission rates were higher than would be predicted by CMS models based on their case mix. Hospitals with higher-than-predicted readmission rates will have their total Medicare reimbursement for fiscal year 2013 cut by up to 1% based on these calculations.¹ The CMS recently made these payment cuts public.