Medicare’s Hospital Readmissions Reduction program will penalize 2499 hospitals for excessive readmissions in the coming year.

That represents 47 percent of all hospitals covered by the program.

The average penalty for the nearly 2500 hospitals will be a 0.64 percent reduction of their Medicare payments. Thirty-nine hospitals will suffer the maximum penalty: a three percent cut of their Medicare payments.

Learn more about the effect the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program has had on hospitals – and on patients admitted to the hospital with specific medical conditions – in the Kaiser Health News story “Medicare Punishes 2,499 Hospitals for High Readmissions.”