According to Medicare's latest hospital readmissions data on its Hospital Compare website updated last week, very few hospitals are singled out as poor performers when it comes to readmissions, despite the fact that readmission rates haven't been improving nationwide.
Hospital readmissions costs Medicare $17.5 billion in inpatient spending with a rate of nearly one in five Medicare patients readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of discharge, according to the Hospital Compare website.
According to the new data, out of more than 4,000 hospitals nationwide, Medicare singled out 2 percent (41 hospitals) as having worse than expected readmission rates for heart attack patients, 4 percent (159 hospitals) with worse than expected rates for heart failure patients and 3 percent (123 hospitals) with worse than expected rates for pneumonia patients.
Only eight hospitals were recognized as having worse than expected readmission rates for all three conditions, including Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston; Florida Hospital in Orlando, Fla.; Franciscan St. James Health in Olympia, Ill.; Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit; Mount Sinai Hospital in New York; Olympia Medical Center in Los Angeles; San Juan VA Medical Center in San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Tampa VA Medical Center in Tampa, Fla.
As far as hospitals that have done a superior job in decreasing readmissions, Medicare labeled 1 percent of hospitals (30 hospitals) as having better than average rates for heart attacks and pneumonia, and 2 percent of hospitals (94 hospitals) for heart failure rates.
For better than average readmissions rates for all three conditions, only 10 hospitals were identified: Boca Raton Regional Hospital in Boca Raton, Fla.; Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo, Mich.; Kalispell Regional Medical Center in Kalispell, Mont.; Memorial Hermann Hospital System in Houston; Munson Medical Center in Traverse City, Mich.; Owensboro Medical Health System in Owensboro, Ky.; Parkview Regional Medical Center in Fort Wayne, Ind.; Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque, N.M.; St. Francis-Downtown in Greenville, S.C.; and Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, Kan.
On the Hospital Compare website, Medicare noted that because there aren't a large number of readmission cases for heart attacks, pneumonia and heart failure for certain hospitals, they were cautious about labeling those organizations due to inaccurate statistics.