CMS fines half of hospitals for readmitting too many patients: Kaiser Health News lets you look up your hospital

“Under programs set up by the Affordable Care Act, the federal government cuts payments to hospitals that have high rates of readmissions and those with the highest numbers of infections and patient injuries,” Jordan Rau writes for Kaiser Health News. “For the readmission penalties, Medicare cuts as much as 3 percent for each patient, although the average is generally much lower. The patient safety penalties cost hospitals 1 percent of Medicare payments over the federal fiscal year, which runs from October through September. Maryland hospitals are exempted from penalties because that state has a separate payment arrangement with Medicare.Below are look-up tools for each type of penalty. You can search by hospital name or location, look at all hospitals in a particular state and sort penalties by year.” Jordan Rau, “Look Up Your Hospital: Is It Being Penalized By Medicare?” Kaiser Health News.