Skip to content

Return to the Full Article View You can republish this story for free. Click the "Copy HTML" button below. Questions? Get more details.

Letters To The Editor: Readers’ Thoughts On Tennessee Medicaid’s Long-Term Care Benefits; Hospital Readmissions; And The Nursing Professor Shortage

Letters to the Editor is a periodic KHN feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We will edit for space, and we require full names.

Among the stories that have drawn comments and responses are Jordan Rau’s piece about hospital readmission rates, as well as Guy Gugliotta’s article about Tennessee cuts to Medicaid. Here’s a sampling:

The following comments were in response to Tennessee Cuts Medicaid Benefit Funding For Some Long-Term Care Patients (Gugliotta, 7/29):

Connie A. Taylor – care coordinator, Elder Law of East Tennessee, Knoxville

Ann Cobo, Cattaraugus County, N.Y.

The story Words Can Wound: How The Media Describe The Mentally Ill And Disabled (Groff, Wildman, 7/26) drew this comment:

Dick Hegner, Columbia, Md.

Regarding Nursing Schools Struggling To Find Professors (Hausman, 8/3):

Sharon Baker Witzel, New Jersey

Janet Sgro, Connecticut

In response to Hospitals’ Readmissions Rates Not Budging (Rau, 7/19):

Susan DeVore, president and CEO of Premium Healthcare Alliance, Charlotte, N.C.

… Abundant evidence suggests that socioeconomic variables beyond the hospital’s control … also drive increased readmissions. The problem is that none of these important factors are taken into account in the current government measure for readmission rates, making it a particularly blunt instrument that is often not a perfect reflection of the quality of care provided by a hospital….

A key change we can make is developing a readmission measure that appropriately accounts for socioeconomic factors and truly reflects the quality of hospital care. Medicare should follow the National Quality Forum’s Readmissions Steering Committee’s solution to stratify and adjust for socioeconomic factors that influence readmissions. Until the measure is modified, the current payment penalty needs to be adjusted to account for these factors to avoid unintended consequences.

Failure to do so not only unfairly penalizes hospitals for readmissions they likely have little influence in preventing, but also penalizes those safety net hospitals that provide a large volume of care to indigent or Medicare/Medicaid dual-eligible patients.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

Some elements may be removed from this article due to republishing restrictions. If you have questions about available photos or other content, please contact khnweb@kff.org.