Medicare to Penalize 120 Illinois Hospitals for Poor Readmission Rates

As part of an effort to force healthcare providers into providing a higher quality of care to their patients, the Affordable Care Act allows the federal government to penalize hospitals for having to readmit too many patients within thirty days of their initial release, according to an article in the August 18, 2014 edition of Crain’s Chicago Business. In the article, entitled “Medicare to Ding 120 Illinois Hospitals Over Readmission,” author Andrew Wang revealed that in 2015 the federal government is set to penalize an astounding 120 hospitals in Illinois for readmitting patients with certain conditions at rates higher than the national average. According to the article, Medicare has discovered that 94 percent of hospitals in Illinois had readmission rates higher than the national average between 2010-2013. In 2015, the Affordable Care Act will authorize a penalty of up to 3 percent of hospital reimbursement, according to Crain’s Chicago Business. The most penalized hospital in Illinois will be Ingalls Memorial Hospital in Harvey, who will be penalized 2.94 percent of their reimbursement, up almost 2 percent from their penalty in 2014, Crain’s Chicago Business reported.