Monday, March 21, 2022 | The Latest Research, Commentary, And News From Health Affairs
Dear John, The White House announced that Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University's School of Public Health, will serve as the new White House COVID-19 response coordinator.
In November, Jha was featured on A Health
Podyssey to discuss what he's learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. Jha has coauthored a number of articles on Forefront, covering topics including America's COVID-19 response and hospital capacity during the pandemic.
Changes To Medicare HRRP
The Medicare Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP)
was modified in 2019 to stratify hospitals according to the proportion of their patients who are dual Medicare and Medicaid enrollees—a measure of social risk.
In the March issue of Health Affairs, Sukruth Shashikumar and coauthors examine the change in average annual penalty percentage among safety-net hospitals, rural hospitals, and hospitals with a large share of Black and Hispanic/Latino patients.
All three groups experienced a small reduction in penalties due to stratification, implying a “modest step toward equity within the HRRP.”
“Stratification represents a move away from penalizing hospitals for taking care of patients facing systemic barriers to care,” the authors conclude.
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