Medicare’s hospital readmissions reduction program often penalizes the wrong hospitals for excessive readmissions.

Or so concludes a new study published in the journal JAMA Cardiology.

According to the study,

…the percentage of hospitals that were incorrectly penalized was 10.1% for acute myocardial infarction, 10.9% for heart failure, and 12.3 percent for pneumonia.

The study also found that the readmissions reduction program is failing to penalize some hospitals that do deserve penalties based on the program’s standards, writing that

…in fiscal year 2019, the percentage of hospitals that should have been penalized by the program, but were not, was 20.9% for acute myocardial infarction, 13.5% for heart failure, and 13.2 percent for pneumonia.

Learn more about the study’s findings and why Medicare’s hospital readmissions reduction program is missing its mark in the JAMA Cardiology report “Misclassification of Hospital Performance Under the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program.”