The Kaiser Family Foundation has an issue brief, “Aiming for Fewer Hospital U-turns: The Medicare Hospital Readmission Reduction Program,” that describes the HRRP, analyzes the impact of this program on Medicare patients and hospitals, and discusses several issues that have been raised regarding its implementation. While other studies have focused primarily on penalties imposed on specific hospitals, this Issue Brief provides additional analysis on the extent to which Medicare beneficiaries stay in hospitals with relatively high penalties and national trends in beneficiary readmission rates.
