Hospitals that serve the largest proportion of low-income patients are suffering the greatest financial penalties under Medicare’s value-based purchasing program.
Collectively, hospitals that serve the most low-income patients are seeing their Medicare payments reduced 0.09 percent during year two of the Medicare program while hospitals that serve the fewest low-income patients have seen their Medicare payments rise 0.06 percent, according to a new study by a Harvard School of Public Health professor.
Medicare’s value-based purchasing program, mandated by the Affordable Care Act, bases penalties and bonuses on 24 quality measures.
In Pennsylvania, 45 percent of the state’s hospitals received bonuses while 53 percent were penalized; both figures are the same as the national averages.  The average bonus for Pennsylvania hospitals was 0.24 percent – the national average – while the average penalty was 0.20 percent, slightly lower than the national average of 0.26 percent.
The author of the study suspects that the performance of safety-net hospitals may be suffering from the manner in which their patients are responding to the patient satisfaction survey that is one of the determining factors in evaluating hospital performance.
For a closer look at the study and its findings, see this Kaiser Health News report.