Safety-net hospitals are among the leading beneficiaries of changes implemented this year in Medicare’s  hospital readmissions reduction program.

According to a new study, safety-net, academic, and rural hospitals have enjoyed improved performance under the program since Medicare began organizing hospitals into peer groups based on the proportion of low-income patients they serve rather than simply comparing individual hospital performance to that of all other hospitals.

While the current fiscal year is still under way, it appears that safety-net hospitals will enjoy a collective decline of $22 million in Medicare readmissions penalties while 44.1 percent of teaching hospitals and 43.7 percent of rural hospitals will face smaller penalties than last year.

NASH was one of the leading and most outspoken proponents of leveling the playing field in the readmissions reduction program, encouraging policy-makers to reform the program so it would compare hospital readmission rates among similar hospitals instead of to those of all hospitals.  NASH’s multi-year effort proved successful and private safety-net hospitals are now benefiting from that success.

Learn more about the readmissions reduction program and how changes in that program have significantly altered its outcomes in the JAMA Internal Medicine study “Association of Stratification by Dual Enrollment Status With Financial Penalties in the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program.”