Medicare penalties won't hit county's hospitals
JANESVILLE--Wisconsin hospitals—including all in Rock County—fared well in a new performance review and will be fully reimbursed for their Medicare services.
The provision, enacted under the Affordable Care Act, penalizes hospitals for excessive Medicare readmissions for three medical conditions: heart attacks, heart failure and pneumonia.
The maximum amount a hospital can be penalized is 1 percent of its Medicare payments.
That will increase to 2 percent in 2013 and 3 percent in 2014. The penalty focuses on patients who return to a hospital within 30 days of their discharge because of complications.
The penalties are part of a broad push under President Barack Obama’s health care law to improve quality while also trying to save taxpayers money.
Starting Oct. 1, about two-thirds of the hospitals serving Medicare patients—some 2,200 facilities nationwide—will be hit with penalties averaging around $125,000 per facility, according to government estimates.
In Wisconsin, the government looked at the readmission records of 65 hospitals. Sixty percent will face no penalty, while 40 percent will face penalties ranging from 0.01 percent to 0.49 percent.
For a full story, read Friday's Gazette, read online in the Gazette’s E-Edition or check back at GazetteXtra.com.
Oct 6, 2012 at 9:48 a.m.
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Teachers are held accountable. Always have been. Please clarify.
Oct 5, 2012 at 9:37 p.m.
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JoyM, I'm experiencing double postings on Facebook! Anyway, it seems to be the goal to discharge patients from hospitals before the weekend. Sorry to hear your dad suffered from this.
Oct 5, 2012 at 9:01 p.m.
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Perhaps there may be a push to send patients home by some hospitals and there may be times when patients aren't given the most thorough education as they leave. However more so than not in my experience most hospitals have numerous personnel advocating for the patient from social workers, family members, physicians, nursing staff, therapists who raise concern to prevent early discharge. I feel this is not the problem but its more often simply a decline in the patients health or poor compliance on the patients part of why a patient might require rehospitalization. I feel the fines are really an unfair reflection of a hospitals care.
Oct 5, 2012 at 12:05 p.m.
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There's an outstanding book called "Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won't Tell You and How Transparency can Revolutionize Healthcare," by Dr. Martin Makary. It talks about the variations in the quality of care, and what questions to ask about the hospitals you are considering for treatment. Contrary to popular belief, care isn't necessarily standardized. Publicizing readmission rates is a great step toward transparency. As the article points out, it isn't a perfect measure, but it's a step in the right direction.
Oct 5, 2012 at 10:33 a.m.
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JoyM..ever since updating my iPad funny things keep happening here.
Oct 5, 2012 at 9:16 a.m.
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Fedup - there are licensing requirements for most levels of health care providers, but no one teacher could be to blame for a process that is broken, which is apparently what happened to my dad. Donnaw, I think I am not the only one experiencing double-postings, so maybe it's not operator error!
Oct 5, 2012 at 8:59 a.m.
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How come the Gazette doesn't do articles on the ever changing rising costs of Obamacare or the other negative things?
Oct 5, 2012 at 8:59 a.m.
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How come the Gazette doesn't do articles on the ever changing rising costs of Obamacare or the other negative things?
Oct 5, 2012 at 8:25 a.m.
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Don't know why that posted twice.
Oct 5, 2012 at 8:25 a.m.
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While I agree we should hold teachers accountable, a teacher's poor performance is not usually likely to result in death or permanent disability. My dad got discharged after open heart surgery rehab with a raging staph infection (that apparently went unnoticed by medical "professional" who discharged him on a Friday, of course) that destroyed most of his sternum and some ribs. After spending days in the ICU upon his return, his next stint in physical rehab was to learn to walk with his walker after having all of his chest muscles reattached elsewhere because their usual place was permanently removed. Considering he had also had strokes in the past, it was a wonder he ever learned to walk again at all, and the staph infection could never be cured, so he was on antibiotics for the remaining years of his life. If these fines make hospitals get their acts together, that's great. Note that apparently the hospital that allowed this to happen to him is not receiving a fine.
Oct 5, 2012 at 8:25 a.m.
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While I agree we should hold teachers accountable, a teacher's poor performance is not usually likely to result in death or permanent disability. My dad got discharged after open heart surgery rehab with a raging staph infection (that apparently went unnoticed by medical "professional" who discharged him on a Friday, of course) that destroyed most of his sternum and some ribs. After spending days in the ICU upon his return, his next stint in physical rehab was to learn to walk with his walker after having all of his chest muscles reattached elsewhere because their usual place was permanently removed. Considering he had also had strokes in the past, it was a wonder he ever learned to walk again at all, and the staph infection could never be cured, so he was on antibiotics for the remaining years of his life. If these fines make hospitals get their acts together, that's great. Note that apparently the hospital that allowed this to happen to him is not receiving a fine.
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