Massachusetts gets mixed results in effort to reduce readmissions via " Healthcare Dive"
DATE: June 24, 2015
Dive Brief:
- Attempts in Massachusetts to cut unplanned hospital readmissions brought mixed results from 2011 to 2013, according to the state's Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA).
- CHIA notes that this report presents the first look at readmissions in the state's adult all-payer population, rather than just among the Medicare fee-for-service population.
- The analysis concludes that unplanned readmissions dropped each year throughout the state, but that there was wide variation across categories such as payer type, discharge setting and patient age. It found that a small patient population was reponsible for most readmissions.
Dive Insight:
The report suggests these findings offer opportunities to focus attention on patients who are frequent users, in order to better understand and address their post-acute care requirements. It found that the 7% of patients who were hospitalized four or more times in a twelve-month period accounted for a quarter of all hospitalizations and 59% of all readmissions.
Among other key findings, the report says that readmission rates for those with Medicare and Medicaid were higher (17.3% and 17.0%) than those with commercial coverage (9.8%). "Readmissions among individuals covered by public payers comprise 81% of all readmissions in the state," the report says.
In addition, after accounting for differences in patient cases and hospital services, the report finds that few hospitals achieved readmission rates statistically different from the statewide rate. "Of the 62 acute care hospitals included in this analysis, four had adjusted readmission rates above the state average and two had adjusted readmission rates below the state average," it says.