Slide 5

More Than Just Patient Safety

• "Hospitals with high rates of readmission will be paid less if patients are readmitted to the hospital within the same 30-day period, saving $26 billion over 10 years."
      —Obama Administration Budget Document
• MedPAC recommends reducing payments to hospitals with high readmission rates.
     —MEDPAC Testimony before Congress March '09
• CMS: 14 Quality Improvement Organizations "Safe Transitions" demonstration projects
• CMS to release new payment scheme

Notes:

While we believe that a better prepared patient is a safer patient at home, there are also other considerations. Changes are coming related to payment for hospitalized patients. Beginning with the Federal Government, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will soon not pay for readmission within 30 days for certain conditions that have high readmission rates, such as heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, and pneumonia. This means hospitals will have to bear the cost of those readmissions. So it is in our best interest, as well as our patients� interest, to improve our discharge program.