Medicare will reduce payments to 2,334 hospitals over the next year because too many of their patients returned to the hospital within 30 days of discharge. The penalties, which took effect Oct. 1 for fiscal 2027, apply to about 80% of hospitals evaluated, up from 2,304 hospitals, or 78%, a year earlier, Healthcare Dive reported based on Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) data.
The maximum penalty is a 3% cut to a hospital's base Medicare inpatient payments, but most penalized hospitals face reductions below 1%. Healthcare Dive called this the second straight year of worsening results for U.S. hospitals.
