News: Many hospitals penalized in the first five years of HRRP

CMS penalized more than half of hospitals participating in its Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) from fiscal year 2013 to 2017, according to a recent Health Affairs study, Revenue Cycle Advisor reported.

The average penalty increased from 0.29% in 2013 to 0.6% in 2017. Health Affairs referred to this as a modest penalty, bearing in mind that opportunities for penalization have increased since 2013.

Hospitals with high baseline penalties in the first year of the program tended to have higher penalties later in the program with large, urban, teaching, and for-profit facilities typically earning higher readmission penalties overall. Participating hospitals often found it difficult to reduce penalties over the years, according to Health Affairs.

Hospitals treating a large number of Medicare or socioeconomically disadvantaged patients also experienced high penalties. Hospitals with high instances of medically complex patients, however, reported a lower cumulative penalty burden than hospitals with low instances of these patients, Health Affairs reported.