How NC hospitals dealt with readmission penalties

Penalizing hospitals if patients are readmitted shortly after being discharged has appeared to change facilities' approach to care, according to WUNC’s look at several hospitals in the Triangle region of North Carolina.

“Out of the hospital is a big change for most hospital systems,” said West Paul, MD, PhD, the chief quality officer for WakeMed Health and Hospitals. “It's the right thing to do, and it makes everyone's lives easier.”

WakeMed’s Raleigh hospital saw its penalty reduced to zero for 2018. Its Cary, North Carolina, hospital, however, was given a 0.6 percent penalty, putting it in line with about 63 percent of the hospitals in the state. The highest penalty among the hospitals examined by WUNC was Duke Raleigh, which may be indicative of the issues these penalties present to academic medical centers.

“Some of those local, especially rural, communities may not have the capabilities or sometimes the experience with sicker, more complicated patients,” said Thomas Owens, MD, Duke University Health System’s chief medical officer. “And in those settings if the patient presents to the local emergency room—which is the right thing to do if you are sick and concerned about your care—there's a very high likelihood that you will get readmitted to the hospital. Higher than if you were closer to one of our care facilities.”

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