Number of U.S. hospitals Medicare punished for high readmissions FY 2015-2023

In FY2023, from the 5,236 hospitals Medicare assessed for hospital readmissions, 2,273 (or 42 percent) were penalized for readmission rates exceeding 30-day risk-standardized readmission rates. This is significantly lower than in FY 2015 where 2,610 hospitals were penalized.
The Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) was created as part of Affordable Care Act's (ACA's) payment and delivery system reform, to focus on quality rather than quantity of care. Preventable rehospitalization costs Medicare hundreds of millions of dollars each year and can be avoided through better care and more attention paid to the patients during discharge and transition. For penalized hospitals, CMS will reduce payment for every Medicare patient stay for that federal fiscal year by one to three percent depending on readmission rates. Penalties so far were collectively over half a billion U.S. dollars each year. Starting in FY2019, CMS take into account the proportion of low-income patients within a hospital, since they are more likely to be readmitted due to other socio-economic factors. This statistic presents the number of hospitals in the United States that Medicare punished for high readmission within 30 days in FY 2015 to 2023.