Under it, Medicare evaluates how good U.S. hospitals are at preventing patient complications. Starting in October, the bottom 25 percent will be fined.
The fine is 1 percent of Medicare reimbursements. So if a facility would otherwise receive $50 million, it will receive $500,000 less.
The fines will be assessed initially based on hospitals’ statistics over two years.
In April, data was released on the 12 months in the middle of that stretch: July 2012 through June 2013. Hospitals were ranked on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the best and those ranked 7 to 10 potentially liable for fines.
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