How Rehospitalizations are Hurting Medicare

Robert Pozen and Cathy Schoen recently reported in the Boston Globe that 75% of all 30-day hospital readmissions of Medicare patients in 2005 (13% of total admissions) were potentially preventable. If these readmissions were eliminated, Medicare could save $12 billion annually, or more than half of its unfunded liability, according to the authors.

Robert Pozen is a trustee of the Commonwealth Fund. Cathy Schoen is senior vice president of the Commonwealth Fund.

Read the full Boston Globe Article

Also see the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report

Note: the Buddy Check Network is already on top of this with our speech activated data collection system tied into Geri-Perk, a local Medicare Facilitator organization, and Microsoft's HealthVault.