Posted on 02/09/2020 2:27:05 AM PST by gattaca
Payments withheld over readmissions, complications ROSA SALTER RODRIGUEZ | The Journal Gazette Several Fort Wayne-area hospitals are having their Medicare payments cut because patients suffered complications or had to be readmitted, according to study results published by Kaiser Health News.
Lutheran Hospital, Dupont Hospital and Parkview Medical Center and other hospitals in the Parkview system all made the 2020 list.
Hospitals can be penalized 1% for the federal fiscal year from October to September for complications, including hospital-acquired infections.
Penalties for excess readmissions range up to 3% per patient. No local hospital came close to that.
The penalties are part of efforts under the Affordable Care Act to track and improve patient care and safety. Some version of the program has been in force since 2015. Kaiser, which monitors the medical industry, published its analysis last week.
Of the local hospitals, Parkview Regional Medical Center made the list for complications for the first time.
Parkview also had excess readmissions for the third straight year. However, the percentage of the penalty dropped from 0.16% in 2018 to 0.06% this year.
Lutheran received a 0.13% penalty for readmissions; its penalties have ranged from 0.07% in 2016 to 0.15% in 2018 and last year.
No 2020 data on complications was available for Lutheran Hospital or its orthopedic hospital, though both were penalized in 2019, the report says.
Other Parkview hospitals were also penalized.
Parkview Whitley Hospital was penalized 0.7% for readmissions, up from 0.15% in 2019. It received no penalty for complications.
Parkview Huntington Hospital was penalized for complications and received a 0.02% penalty for readmissions, down from 0.38% in 2019.
Parkview Noble Hospital, in Kendallville, was not penalized in either category.
Parkview issued a statement saying it is committed to a continuous focus on patient safety.
“Last year, we began implementing a number of performance-improvement programs to address the report ... These programs have resulted in significant improvements in the measures,” the statement said.
A response from Lutheran said officials were “pleased to see a reduction in readmissions.”
“As we remain focused on identifying and following best practices and collaborating with other community providers, we expect to see continued improvement,” the statement says.
Among area hospitals, the second-highest penalty for readmissions – 0.35% – came at Dupont Hospital. It was not penalized for complications.
St. Joseph Hospital in Fort Wayne was not listed separately in the study.
Among the 786 hospitals nationwide to receive penalties are many large, well-known and well-respected institutions, including Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles and the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco.
In its sixth year, the program has penalized 1,865 of the nation's 5,276 hospitals in at least one year, according to the Kaiser study, which does not detail how much the penalties cost individual hospitals.
1st Medicare writes rules about how long they can keep people in the hospital, that hurries the handling of patients. Then they penalize for re-admissions.
Yes. Bureaucrap.
Rules are rules, even when they don’t make sense. The bean counters who wrote the rules don’t have a clue about medicine.
(my humble opinion)
Absolutely true.
Wow, interesting, didn’t know about this data source; looking up the data on my area hospitals, it was interesting to see how ‘the worst local hospital’ stacked up better vs every other area hospital.
Only in the democRAT Obambi world is re-admitting someone to a hospital considered bad. We have John McCain to thank for this Crap continuing to be part of our lives.
Don’t forget John Roberts.
There is no link to the Kaiser report in the article. Would live to see who is on it.
Readmissions even for non-compliance on the part of the patient is not reimbursed.
Thanks
The purpose of Obamacare was not to fix anything or improve patient care; it was to destroy the system so that it could be rebuilt to exact the maximum benefit to the state.
I did not know that. Thanks
I wonder if they will pass on the expenses to the consumer...
Disinfecting many of the hospitals and personnel might help. They aren’t what they used to be.
What is worse the readmission penalty is for all readmissions, not narrowed to those associated with the initial admission. If I have you in the hospital for influenza and 3 weeks later you break a hip or have a heart attack and get readmitted, that goes against the hospital. Just how can we control that?
If the patients die in the hospital they would not come back for re-admission.
Be scared be very SCARED
“Rules are rules, even when they don’t make sense. The bean counters who wrote the rules don’t have a clue about medicine.”
A friend’s elderly mother had a hip replacement, the hospital wanted to send her home after one night?
The physician wrote ‘possible sign of infection’ and that gave her a second night.
And she did just fine.
Hubby was in one of our local hospitals for a procedure. Daughter and I were in the surgery waiting room for about 2 hours. While we sat there we watched an attendant of some sort come in about every 10 minutes and wipe down any empty seats, tables, etc. with a disinfectant. They were ‘on it’!
As an EMT I transport many non-compliant patients with chronic conditions (COPD, Type 2 Diabetes, CHF, psych) who arrive at the ED wearing hospital bands from their previous admission for the same complaint. It goes like this - "Sure, it possible a miraculous cure was unveiled overnight, but its not likely." Thus an otherwise great teaching hospital gets hosed, along with taxpayers.
just want are you implying? That I would allow a patient to die simply to avoid a readmission? I really hope you arent
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.