Open AccessDid Hospital Readmissions Fall Because Per Capita Admission Rates Fell?
Author(s) -
J. Michael McWilliams,
Michael L. Barnett,
Eric T. Roberts,
Pasha Hamed,
Ateev Mehrotra
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
health affairs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.837
H-Index - 178
eISSN - 2694-233X
pISSN - 0278-2715
DOI - 10.1377/hlthaff.2019.00411
Subject(s) - medicine , emergency medicine , per capita , hospital admission , demography , environmental health , population , sociology
Recent reductions in hospital readmission rates have been attributed to the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program. However, admission rates also declined during the same period. We found that because the probability of an admission occurring soon after another is lower when there are fewer admissions per patient, the reduction in admission rates may explain much of the reduction in readmission rates.