Hospice News July 5, 2022
The availability of post-acute resources, including hospice and palliative care, has a significant impact on hospital readmissions, but greater coordination among providers could drive improvement.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) penalizes hospitals for readmissions rates that exceed certain thresholds, but the agency does not account for the supply of post-acute providers available to patients in a providers’ service region.
Thus, conditions in the community likely impact readmission rates and hospitals could benefit from work to improve local access to post-acute care, the authors of a study published today in Health Affairs concluded.
This can include hospice and palliative care, both of which have been found to reduce readmissions, according to lead author Kenneth Griffith, assistant professor...