Medicare to Cut Payments to Nursing Communities Whose Residents End Up Back in the Hospital

A new Medicare program is basing payments to 14,959 skilled nursing communities on how frequently their residents are readmitted to hospitals within 30 days of leaving, reports National Public Radio . Almost 11 percent of residents were sent to hospitals in 2016 for conditions that might have been avoided with better medical oversight. Medicare bonuses and penalties also are designed to discourage nursing communities from moving out residents too quickly, which is a temptation as Medicare fully reimburses only the first 20 days of a stay and generally stops payments after 100 days. From Oct. 1 through the end of September 2019, the best-performing communities will receive 1.6 percent more payments for each Medicare beneficiary than they would have otherwise, while the worst-performing ones will lose nearly 2 percent of each payment. For-profit communities contend with deeper cuts on average than nonprofit and government-owned communities.