Preventing Readmissions: The Key Is Successful Discharge Planning

More than 35 million patients are discharged from hospitals each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This complex process is fraught with challenges. Among Medicare patients, almost 20% who are discharged from a hospital are readmitted within 30 days.

This costs Medicare $27 billion per year — and approximately $17 billion of that is spent on readmissions that could be classified as potentially avoidable. Preventing these avoidable readmissions has the potential to profoundly improve both the quality of life for patients and the financial well-being of health care systems.