More than 80 percent of all hospitals subject to Medicare’s hospital readmissions reduction program, and half of all of hospitals in the country, will be penalized in FY 2021 under that program because they have what Medicare considers to be too many avoidable readmissions.

In all, 2556 of the 3080 hospitals subject to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services program will be penalized.  More than 600 will see their inpatient payments cut one percent as a result and the average cut will be 0.69 percent.

The penalties are based on hospital performance with patients experiencing congestive heart failure, heart attacks, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, coronary artery bypass graft surgery, pneumonia, and knee and hip replacement.  Such patients are considered readmitted if they return to the hospital within 30 days of their discharge for these conditions unless their return to the hospital was planned as part of their treatment.

Learn more about hospital performance under Medicare’s hospital readmissions reduction program and find links to tools to look up individual hospitals and download nation-wide hospital 2021 readmissions data in the Kaiser Health News article “Medicare Fines Half of Hospitals for Readmitting Too Many Patients.”