Hospitals with the Poorest Patients Have the Highest Readmission Rates
The analysis showed that 11.7 percent of the Most Poor Patients hospitals were ranked by Medicare as having worse readmission rates than the national average. Only 4.3 percent of the rest of the hospitals had worse-than-average readmission rates. In other words, those hospitals with the largest share of poor patients were 2.7 times as likely to have high readmission rates.
But is it because of the patients or because of the hospitals? Source: Kaiser Health News
The hospitals in question are probably mostly small community hospitals in inner-city areas or rural areas, where the poverty rate is higher than average. The patients are probably sicker due to poverty and less compliant due to lower levels of education. These patients’ doctors are probably struggling to make ends meet more than physicians in more affluent areas.
The higher rates of readmissions are probably due to a combination of factors — including patient characteristics, hospital conditions and possibly even physician attributes.
Of the hospitals, “92 percent were rated as having average readmission rates, so only true outliers are labeled as better or worse than average.”
Truly, these are “true outliers,” since otherwise there should be some sort of distribution of readmission rates, rather than 92% being average.
Similarly, very few hospitals were above average (having lower readmission rates). This seems odd.
I agree that education levels and poverty play a factor in these patients being sicker – thus, the hospitals they go to will have higher readmission rates.