Medicare’s new program will alter a year’s worth of payments to 14,959 skilled nursing facilities across the U.S., based on how often in the past fiscal year their residents ended up back in hospitals within 30 days of leaving. – BSIP/Getty Images
by Jordan Rau
“The federal government took a new step this week to reduce avoidable hospital readmissions of nursing home patients. The move targets the homes’ bottom lines by lowering a year’s worth of payments to nearly 11,000 nursing homes, and giving bonuses to nearly 4,000 others.
“These financial incentives, determined by each home’s readmission rates, significantly expand Medicare’s effort to pay medical providers based on the quality of care instead of just the number or condition of their patients.
“Until now, Medicare mostly limited these kinds of incentives to hospitals, which have gotten used to facing financial repercussions if too many of their patients are readmitted, suffer infections or other injuries, or die.”
Click here to read this article in its entirety at NPR.
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