Treating the high cost of healthcare

A feature of the Affordable Care Act is about to kick in and will result in 20 Colorado hospitals being penalized for having too many discharged Medicare patients return within a month. Nationally, more than 2,000 hospitals will forfeit $280M in 2013. The Denver Post's Michael Booth reported, "Hospitals will lose up to 1 percent of the next year's Medicare payments if they readmitted too high a proportion of their patients from 2008 to 2011. While 26 Colorado hospitals escaped the sanction, a Cheyenne Wells hospital will lose 1 percent, and five Centura hospitals are being fined up to a quarter of 1 percent of Medicare bills."