Heart Failure Devices: Raising Roadblocks To Readmission

Heart failure is a complicated condition to diagnose and treat and it’s about to get even more complicated, at least for providers. In August, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) formally adopted the fiscal 2012 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) final rule, which among other things, establishes a new process for tracking and quantifying 30-day hospital readmission rates for three high-cost conditions: heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, and pneumonia. The aim is to identify hospitals with “excess” Medicare readmissions as part of CMS’ new Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, mandated by the health care reform law.

The ultimate goal is to reduce the cost associated with potentially preventable readmissions, and in order to achieve that goal, CMS will institute an economic incentive, in the form of...