In an AHASTAT blog post today, AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack responds to a recent Wall Street Journal analysis that questioned the recent reductions in hospital readmissions. “Here is what the numbers show,” Pollack writes. “Between January 2012 and November 2014, hospitals participating in the American Hospital Association Partnership for Patients initiative avoided 65,022 readmissions generating health care savings of nearly $575 million. Additionally, an analysis in a 2014 [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] peer-reviewed journal did not find evidence to suggest the drop in readmissions rates was the result of increases in either emergency department visits or observation stays as CMS stated in the article. It is no coincidence that the increase in observation services occurred with the advent of the Recovery Audit Contractors program. Too often, the medical judgment of treating physicians was second-guessed by RACs, which could evaluate a beneficiary’s admission in hindsight, looking at the entire medical record rather than only the information that was known to the physician at the time of the admission.”

Related News Articles

Headline
Karie Gibson, a licensed clinical psychologist who leads one of the FBI’s five behavioral analysis units, shares a behavioral threat assessment approach to…
Headline
The president of NorthShore Highland Park Hospital discusses her team’s coordinated response to a mass shooting during the 2022 July Fourth parade in Highland…
Headline
The American Society for Health Care Risk Management named Tracy Melina of Nuvance Health 2023 Risk Management Professional of the Year. Melina, who…
Chairperson's File
September is National Preparedness Month. And today marks the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. To those who lost loved ones because…
Headline
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights Sept. 7 released a proposed rule intended to update and clarify requirements under…
Headline
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alerted clinicians, laboratories and public health departments to recent fatal infections from Vibrio…