Dive Brief:
- Hospitals are doing a better job this year in implementing best practices to reduce 30-day readmissions for cardiac patients, according to a study by Yale University.
- Though hospitals showed "statistically significant changes of substantial magnitude" in the use of some strategies since a prior study in 2012, there was no change in other areas, such as collaboration with patients' primary care doctor.
- Key improvements made by hospitals include higher rates of using a formal procedure to assess risk of readmission (34.6%) and more use of post-care action plans for patients after discharge (60 percent).
Dive Insight:
Right now, 25% of heart failure patients with heart failure and almost 20% of acute myocardial infarction patients are readmitted within 30 days. Though this is an improvement over prior years, these are substantial numbers. With Medicare spending an estimated $17 billion in additional costs on readmissions, CMS is likely to get tougher on hospitals with poor scores in this area. Hospitals might start by improving communication with PCPs, as only 36.6% had a process in place to make sure the PCP knew of patient discharges. But regardless of where they focus, readmissions are a problem they have to conquer. The penalties for performing poorly in this area are only going to get worse over time.