Teaching and rural hospitals had lower penalties in 2019 than in 2018 under the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' readmissions reduction program, Modern Healthcare reports.
The big picture: This was the intended consequence of changes made to the program to take into account the patient mix in these hospitals. The hospitals — particularly safety net hospitals — had said they were unfairly penalized.
- The changes, which were made through the 21st Century Cures Act, sorted hospitals into 5 categories based on the proportion of their patients that were dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid.
Details: According to a JAMA Internal Medicine report, 44.1% of teaching hospitals and 43.7% of rural hospitals had a lower penalty this year than last year.
Go deeper: Hospitals are making a lot of money on outpatient drugs
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