In the fourth quarter of 2012, CMS released the penalties assessed hospitals with excessive 30-day readmission rates and its penalties and rewards for the so-called value-based purchasing program, which reassigned up to 1% of hospital Medicare revenue based on a panel of quality indicators and patient satisfaction. This original statistical analysis comparing the two data sets showed there was only a weak correlation between the outcomes of two programs, and that “Medicare’s rewards for process and patient satisfaction are not always linked to better outcomes.”
