Discharge Resources
Before discharge, healthcare teams create action plans including educational materials for patients and families, home visits to assess surroundings, counseling resources, ambulance services for follow-up visits, and counseling hotlines (Shabani et al., 2021).
Readmission and Reimbursement
Readmission leads to higher operating margins as hospitals face penalties and additional expenses. Patients readmitted experience higher disease severity, consuming extra resources. Value-based care models reimburse based on quality outcomes, making high readmission rates directly detrimental to financial performance (Upadhyay et al., 2019).
Implications for Hospitals and Patients
For patients, readmission means higher costs and emotional exhaustion. For hospitals, it leads to reputation damage, overcrowding, reduced profits, and diminished transparency (Grandcare, 2021).
References
- Grandcare. (2021). How rehospitalization impacts healthcare. https://www.grandcarehealth.com/
- Shabani, F., et al. (2021). Optimization of heart failure patients discharge plan. Int J Community Based Nursing, 9(3), 199. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8242409/
- Upadhyay, S., et al. (2019). Readmission rates and hospital financial performance. INQUIRY, 56. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6614936/
Related: See our value-based care model or quality improvement in healthcare.