The latest release of data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) revealed that more than half of the hospitals that Medicare will penalize in 2016 for having the worst performance on measures of preventing patient harm are on that list for the second year in a row.
The data identified 758 hospitals that will see their Medicare payments reduced by 1 percent for ranking in the bottom quartile nationally under an Affordable Care Act program now in its second year. Fifty-four percent of the hospitals with poor rankings in the second year also ranked poorly in the first. In the first year of the program, 724 hospitals were penalized.
The law requires one-quarter of hospitals to be penalized every year.
Editor
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.