Hospitals' readmissions fines are down

Teaching and rural hospitals had lower penalties in 2019 than in 2018 under the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' readmissions reduction program, Modern Healthcare reports.

The big picture: This was the intended consequence of changes made to the program to take into account the patient mix in these hospitals. The hospitals — particularly safety net hospitals — had said they were unfairly penalized.

• The changes, which were made through the 21st Century Cures Act, sorted hospitals into 5 categories based on the proportion of their patients that were dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid.

Details: According to a JAMA Internal Medicine report, 44.1% of teaching hospitals and 43.7% of rural hospitals had a lower penalty this year than last year.

Go deeper: Hospitals are making a lot of money on outpatient drugs