Hospital Readmission Reduction Program

What is HRRP ?

This CMS program reduces payments to Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) hospitals for excess readmissions, beginning October 1, 2012 . According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), prior research has shown that hospital readmission rates for these patients vary across the nation, indicating an opportunity to improve the quality of care and save taxpayer dollars by incentivizing providers to reduce excess readmissions.
 

Changes to the program occur through rule-making and are published annually with the IPPS/LTCH PPS Final Rule following a public comment period. 

Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program uses risk adjustment, so sicker patients are not in the same category of less sick patients. This means that proper documentation to capture a patient's real severity of illness is very important.