Georgia hospitals could face penalties according to Affordable Care Healthcare Act
As part of the Affordable Healthcare Act, Medicare began fining hospitals that have too many patients re-admitted within 30 days of being discharged.
A week ago, the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program kicked in – penalizing some 307 hospitals for this readmission practice.
According to spokesperson for the Georgia Hospital Association, Kevin Bloye, it has the potential to have a tremendous impact on the Georgia hospital community.
(Here’s a list of Georgia hospitals with Medicare penalties.)
He says over 1/3 of hospitals are losing money every year and this is another huge investment for them to incur.
“Where we specifically have a problem is that readmission, according to this new policy, pretty much lays the blame at the feet of hospitals when in fact, there’s so many other factors that need to be accounted for when looking at hospital readmissions,”says Bloye.
Factors such as patients not following their physician’s instructions, or a lack of primary care in some locations.
Bloye says we’re likely to see a lot of hospitals developing better follow-up programs with their patients they’ve had in the past.
For hospitals it certainly is an incentive to make sure they’re doing the right things and providing the right care at the right time and doing the best they can do to care for patients.
Many, but not all of the Georgia hospitals that have been fined already are in rural areas.
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