Financial penalties levied under the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program lead to the poorest performing hospitals to achieve the greatest reductions in readmission rates for common conditions. The analysis, led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Massachusetts General Hospital, is published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
The Hospital Readmission Reduction Program was enacted into law in 2010 and implemented in 2012 in response to the high numbers of patients who were readmitted within 30 days of their initial discharge from the hospital after treatment for several common conditions, including heart failure, pneumonia and acute myocardial infarction.
