Three Reasons To Track Your Readmission Rate

The Hospital Readmission Reduction Program (HRRP) is a key quality standard reviewed by CMS. Below are three reasons why your healthcare organization should be tracking and analyzing this important requirement.

1. Avoid a CMS payment penalty for 2016.

CMS updated the existing criteria to include additional pneumonia diagnosis.

Did you know that in 2015, only 799 out of 3,400 hospitals performed well enough to avoid a penalty?

Keep in mind, this is not a quality measure you report to CMS like the Clinical Quality Measures. These reductions are based upon your claims data submitted to CMS for payment. 

2. Readmission rates tie closely with patient experience scores.

A research study published in JAMA Internal Medicine, April 2016, showed that CMS star ratings system for hospitals is based solely on patient experience scores. Researchers from Harvard University have found that higher rated hospitals do in fact have lower mortality and readmission rates than their lower rated counterparts. Five Star hospitals readmission rate averages 18.7% while One Star hospitals average is 22.9%.

3. Patient discharge follow-up care will reduce readmissions.

Post discharge follow-up can provide the personal touch of staying in touch with your patients to ensure your patients:

• Follow up on appointments
• Get their prescriptions filled
• Understand their disease process and how to stay well

Iatric Systems provides Readmission Management to help not only monitor your Medicare patients' readmission rate based upon the criteria each year, but also improve the post-discharge care of all your patients. 

If you would like more information about how to track and analyze your readmission rate, please attend our upcoming webcast on May 10th at 2:00 p.m. ET, “Reduce sepsis and readmissions, and analyze key performance indicators for value-based care.”