Cited by 214Healthcare Policy and ManagementHealthcare Quality and ManagementHospital Admissions and Outcomes

Adjusting for social risk factors impacts performance and penalties in the hospital readmissions reduction program

Open access
Joynt Maddox, Karen E., Reidhead, Mat, Hu, Jianhui, Kind, Amy J. H., Zaslavsky, Alan M., Nagasako, Elna M., Nerenz, David R.·2019·Health Services Research

Abstract

Objective: Medicare's Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) does not account for social risk factors in risk adjustment, and this may lead the program to unfairly penalize safety‐net hospitals. Our objective was to determine the impact of adjusting for social risk factors on HRRP penalties. Study Design: Retrospective cohort study. Data Sources/Study Setting: Claims data for 2 952 605 fee‐for‐service Medicare beneficiaries with acute myocardial infarction (AMI), congestive heart failure (CHF) or pneumonia from December 2012 to November 2015. Principal Findings: Poverty, disability, housing instability, residence in a disadvantaged neighborhood, and hospital population from a disadvantaged neighborhood were associated with higher readmission rates. Under current program specifications, safety‐net hospitals had higher readmission ratios (AMI, 1.020 vs 0.986 for the most affluent hospitals; pneumonia, 1.031 vs 0.984; and CHF, 1.037 vs 0.977). Adding social factors to risk adjustment cut these differences in half. Over half the safety‐net hospitals saw their penalty decline; 4‐7.5 percent went from having a penalty to having no penalty. These changes translated into a $17 million reduction in penalties to safety‐net hospitals. Conclusions: Accounting for social risk can have a major financial impact on safety‐net hospitals. Adjustment for these factors could reduce negative unintended consequences of the HRRP.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1111/1475-6773.13133

Cites

34 of 34 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 35 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Joynt Maddox, K. E., Reidhead, M., Hu, J., Kind, A. J. H., Zaslavsky, A. M., Nagasako, E. M., & Nerenz, D. R.
Affiliations
  • Cardiovascular Division Department of Medicine Washington University School of Medicine St. Louis Missouri
  • Missouri Hospital Association Hospital Industry Data Institute Jefferson City Missouri
  • Henry Ford Health (US)
  • University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
  • Harvard University (US)
  • Washington University in St. Louis (US)
Venue
Health Services Research
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2019-03-08
Volume
54
Issue
2
Pages
327-336
ISSN
  • 0017-9124 (ISSN-L)
  • 1475-6773
OpenAlex
W2920906063
Cited by
214
References
35
Citations by year
2026: 11 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 33 · 2021: 54 · 2020: 42 · 2019: 9
FWCI
43.07
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Health Services Research (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (K23HL109177‐03)
  • National Institutes of Health (R01MD010243, RF1AG057784)
  • Henry Ford Health System
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Healthcare Policy and Management
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › Health Information Management › Healthcare Quality and Management
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Emergency Medicine › Hospital Admissions and Outcomes
Keywords
Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, social risk factors, risk adjustment, safety-net hospitals, hospital readmission, Medicare, poverty, housing instability, neighborhood disadvantage, acute myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, pneumonia, hospital penalties, unintended consequences of health policy
MeSH terms
Age Factors, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Economics, Hospital, Female, Persons with Disabilities, Disabled Persons, Medicare, Heart Failure, Humans, Insurance Claim Review, Male, Medicaid, Myocardial Infarction, Patient Readmission, Pneumonia, Residence Characteristics, Retrospective Studies, Risk Factors, Socioeconomic Factors, United States, Risk Adjustment, Health Status Disparities, Quality Improvement, Safety-net Providers

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review