Hospital readmissions due to poor discharge planning are a big problem because they waste money in healthcare. When a patient has to return to the hospital soon after being discharged, it usually means something went wrong in their care plan. Hospital readmissions are on the rise and now cost billions, creating a heavy financial burden on the healthcare system. Around 20% of Medicare patients experience readmission within 30 days, showing how widespread this issue is. To address this, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services started penalizing hospitals with high readmission rates in 2013, which has helped reduce these occurrences (Dhaliwal & Dang, 2024).

During my clinicals at an acute care facility, I learned that readmissions can also affect skilled nursing facilities since they impact reimbursement. If a patient is identified as high-risk for readmission or has had previous readmissions, a skilled nursing facility might hesitate to accept them. They measure these risk factors carefully because a high readmission rate can result in financial penalties for the facility. This process pushed me to understand the importance of better discharge planning and follow-up care to reduce these risks and improve patient satisfaction and outcomes. By focusing on patient education, care coordination, and looking at factors leading to readmissions, healthcare systems can become more efficient. Overall, reducing readmissions would support patients better and benefit the entire healthcare system (Dhaliwal & Dang, 2024).

Reference:

Dhaliwal, J. S., & Dang, A. K. (2024, June 7). Reducing hospital readmissions. StatPearls – NCBI Bookshelf. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK606114/