Healthcare Insights
Critical access hospitals with the highest readmission rates
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) created the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) in 2012. The goal of this program is to reduce 30-day readmissions for the following six conditions:
- Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) or heart attack
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
- Heart failure
- Pneumonia
- Coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery
- Total hip arthroplasty and/or total knee arthroplasty
This value-based care reimbursement program is designed to improve care coordination and link payment to the quality of care the hospital provides to patients. Providing the highest level of care and reducing complications are goals of all hospitals.
Critical access hospitals (CAHs), which provide essential care to rural populations that might not otherwise have healthcare access, are exempt from high readmission rate reimbursement penalties but still report readmission rates to CMS and track rates as a measure of hospital performance.
We reviewed the all-cause readmission rates for 910 CAHs tracked in the Definitive Healthcare HospitalView product. Here are the top 25 critical access hospitals by all-cause hospital-wide readmission rate.
Top 25 CAHs by all-cause hospital-wide readmission rate
Rank | Definitive ID | Hospital name | Location | Number of staffed beds | Number of discharges | All cause hospital-wide readmission rate | Explore dataset |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 4467 | St Joseph's Hospital | Buckhannon, WV | 25 | 859 | 16.80% | Explore |
2 | 6311 | Towner County Medical Center | Cando, ND | 20 | 149 | 16.70% | Explore |
3 | 1069 | Wills Memorial Hospital | Washington, GA | 25 | 291 | 16.70% | Explore |
4 | 3908 | Coon Memorial Hospital | Dalhart, TX | 21 | 601 | 16.60% | Explore |
5 | 2606 | Desert View Hospital | Pahrump, NV | 25 | 1,277 | 16.60% | Explore |
6 | 4559 | Richland Hospital | Richland Center, WI | 25 | 840 | 16.50% | Explore |
7 | 3878 | Memorial Medical Center | Port Lavaca, TX | 25 | 688 | 16.40% | Explore |
8 | 2728 | Mimbres Memorial Hospital | Deming, NM | 25 | 1,091 | 16.40% | Explore |
9 | 1592 | Neosho Memorial Regional Medical Center | Chanute, KS | 21 | 1,352 | 16.40% | Explore |
10 | 5407 | North Caddo Medical Center | Vivian, LA | 25 | 598 | 16.40% | Explore |
11 | 1477 | Burgess Health Center | Onawa, IA | 25 | 418 | 16.30% | Explore |
12 | 3892 | Coleman County Medical Center | Coleman, TX | 25 | 446 | 16.30% | Explore |
13 | 1598 | Phillips County Hospital | Phillipsburg, KS | 25 | 220 | 16.30% | Explore |
14 | 463 | Tahoe Forest Hospital | Truckee, CA | 25 | 1,464 | 16.30% | Explore |
15 | 2944 | Cape Fear Valley - Bladen County Hospital | Elizabethtown, NC | 25 | 559 | 16.20% | Explore |
16 | 1268 | Horizon Health | Paris, IL | 25 | 518 | 16.20% | Explore |
17 | 2088 | Marlette Regional Hospital | Marlette, MI | 25 | 200 | 16.20% | Explore |
18 | 1930 | Marthas Vineyard Hospital | Oak Bluffs, MA | 25 | 892 | 16.20% | Explore |
19 | 2598 | Mesa View Regional Hospital | Mesquite, NV | 25 | 1,100 | 16.20% | Explore |
20 | 1499 | Myrtue Medical Center | Harlan, IA | 25 | 525 | 16.20% | Explore |
21 | 3165 | OhioHealth Hardin Memorial Hospital | Kenton, OH | 25 | 346 | 16.20% | Explore |
22 | 3877 | Ascension Seton Edgar B Davis | Luling, TX | 23 | 546 | 16.10% | Explore |
23 | 4422 | Braxton County Memorial Hospital | Gassaway, WV | 25 | 310 | 16.10% | Explore |
24 | 1267 | Carle Hoopeston Regional Health Center | Hoopeston, IL | 22 | 305 | 16.10% | Explore |
25 | 3169 | Hocking Valley Community Hospital | Logan, OH | 25 | 401 | 16.10% | Explore |
Fig. 1 Data is from the Definitive Healthcare HospitalView product. All-cause hospital readmission rates are sourced from CMS Hospital Compare. Data accurate as of July 2022.
Which critical access hospitals have the highest all-cause readmission rates?
St. Joseph's Hospital in Buckhannon, West Virginia has the highest all-cause readmission rates among CAHs at 16.80%. Towner County Medical Center and Wills Memorial Hospital have readmission rates of 16.70%. Four of the CAHs on the list are located in Texas.
We might expect that hospitals with more total discharges to report higher readmission rates. With each patient discharge, there is a risk for 30-day readmission. Interestingly, there does not seem to be a correlation between total discharges and readmission rate.
For instance, some of the top 25 CAHs report more than 1,000 total discharges and have readmission rates similar to hospitals with about 200 discharges. Instead, these differences may be due to factors such as the case complexity or co-morbidities of recent patients receiving care at the hospital.
What is the average all-cause hospital-wide readmission rate?
The average all-cause hospital-wide readmission rate for U.S. hospitals is 15.50%. This is based on readmission data from 4,100 hospitals tracked in the Definitive Healthcare HospitalView product. Rates range from 11.50% to 21.20%.
The current average represents a slight decrease in all-cause readmission rates. Compared to a previous analysis of this data in September 2020, the average all-cause readmission rate at U.S. hospitals was 15.59%.
What are critical access hospitals?
Critical access hospitals (CAHs) are defined by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) as healthcare facilities that:
- have fewer than 25 acute care inpatient beds
- are located more than 35 miles from the nearest hospital (or 15 miles by mountain or secondary roads)
- maintain an average length of stay of 96 hours or less
- must provide 24-hour emergency care services
The Definitive Healthcare HospitalView product tracks more than 1,400 CAHs.
Because of this designation and the areas in which they are located, CAHs usually have less specialists, limited service line offerings, have less access to funding and employ fewer physicians.
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