Readmissions news and information

Despite the influx of millions of new Americans gaining coverage next year because of the healthcare reform law, the projected percentage cost increase to treat patients is expected to decline as consumers become savvier in how to spend healthcare dollars, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers...
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Federal officials are looking to scale back the use of long observation stays believed to be a response to Medicare auditors cracking down on inappropriate admissions.
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The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission recommended in March 2012 that Medicare should equalize evaluation and management office visit payment rates, regardless of whether they occur in a hospital outpatient setting or a physician's office, which would save up to $1 billion a year. On Friday it...
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Four healthcare systems and technology giant IBM have joined the Premier healthcare alliance in a data analytics venture, making the second announcement this week of healthcare providers going in with a big-data partner.
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The Obama administration and health policy experts have been touting last year's decline in Medicare 30-day hospital readmissions as evidence that delivery and payment reforms designed to prevent unnecessary repeat visits were starting to succeed.
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Developers of Mood Rhythm, a mobile application to help patients with bipolar disorder, won the $100,000 top prize in the Heritage Open mHealth Challenge for software developers.
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The Heritage Health Prize competition for data analytics has awarded a $500,000 interim prize to an international team of seven developers for work that came closest to meeting the contest's goal of producing a system that accurately predicts which patients are at high risk of hospital readmission.
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Much has changed in the years since the Institute of Medicine published To Err is Human and Crossing the Quality Chasm, companion reports released in 1999 and 2001 that sounded the alarm about high rates of adverse events and the urgent need to adopt proven best practices in healthcare.
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Though early adopters are gaining experience with accountable care organizations, evidence of their impact on quality remains limited.
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Medicare officials and policy experts long have thought that hospitals should do a better job of preventing the need for patients to be readmitted soon after their initial discharge.
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