Strategies for Reducing the Hospital Readmission Rates of Heart Failure Patients

About 1 in 4 Medicare patients with a discharge diagnosis of heart failure (HF) are readmitted within 30 days of discharge. With the Affordable Care Act that was passed into law in 2010, a section in the Social Security Act established a program called the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program. This program requires the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to reduce payments to hospitals for HF patients who are readmitted within 30 days of discharge. The purpose of this article is to review current HF readmission prevention strategies for effectiveness.