Becker's Hospital Review

10 CFO / FINANCE CMS fines 2,545 hospitals for high readmissions: 5 things to know By Ayla Ellison I n fiscal year 2021, CMS will penalize 2,545 hospitals for having too many Medicare patients readmitted within 30 days, according to federal data cited by Kaiser Health News. is is the ninth year of the Hospital Re- admission Reduction Program. To de- termine penalties for fiscal 2021, CMS examined hospitals' 30-day readmission rates for patients who had originally been treated for the following conditions: heart failure, heart attack, pneumonia, chron- ic obstructive pulmonary disease, hip or knee replacement, and coronary artery bypass gra surgery. CMS used patient data from July 2016 through June 2019 to determine the pen- alties. e agency compared each hospi- tal's reported readmission rate to national averages for each of the conditions to de- termine the penalties. Here are five takeaways from the Nov. 2 Kaiser Health News analysis: 1. Eighty-three percent of the 3,080 hospi- tals evaluated received a penalty. 2. CMS will cut payments to the penalized hospitals by as much as 3 percent for each Medicare case during fiscal 2021, which runs Oct. 1, 2020, through September 2021. 3. irty-nine hospitals were hit with the maximum penalty for fiscal 2021, down from 56 hospitals in fiscal 2020. 4. e average penalty will be a 0.69 per- cent payment cut for each Medicare pa- tient. 5. Of the 3,080 hospitals evaluated, 613 will receive a penalty of 1 percent or more. n Tenet to lay off workers in Detroit, shed 4 urgent care centers By Ayla Ellison D etroit Medical Center is laying off employees, and its parent company, Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare, is planning to sell or close four urgent care centers in the Detroit area, according to a November report from Crain's Detroit Business. Detroit Medical Center officials told Crain's layoffs have occurred, but they declined to disclose the number of employees affected. Sources told Crain's several hundred DMC employees had been laid off as of Nov. 10. Clinical staff, administrative assistants and employees at the management level were report- edly affected. "Like many health systems locally and nationally, we continually evaluate and re- view our staffing needs, which have decreased due to reduced patient demand during the pandemic," DMC said in a statement to Becker's Hospital Review. "Our goal is to ensure we are strongly positioned to provide the highest quality and safest care to our patients while making the best use of our resources." Tenet is also planning to sell or close its four remaining MedPost urgent care centers in the Detroit area. Tenet has reached agreements to sell three of the urgent care centers in Bloomfield, Livonia and Southfield, Mich., to First Choice Urgent Care, a company spokesperson told Becker's Hospital Review in No- vember. "We expect all employees in good standing to be offered positions to remain at the facilities upon completion of the sale," the spokesperson told Becker's. The MedPost urgent care center in Rochester Hills, Mich., was set to close in December, the spokesperson said. Tenet may convert it to a physician office or other type of healthcare facility. "We are committed to providing our full support and assistance to employees through the close, and facilitating opportunities for open roles at local Tenet facilities," the spokesperson told Becker's. Tenet, a 65-hospital system, operated nine MedPost urgent care centers in the Detroit area at the beginning of 2020. It closed five of the centers in April due to challenges linked to the COVID-19 pandemic. The MedPost urgent care cen- ters are not part of DMC. n Chinese billionaire sells additional $40M worth of CHS stock By Ayla Ellison C hinese investor Tianqiao Chen and his group of companies have a 14.96 percent stake in Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems after selling nearly 4.6 million shares of the company, according to a Securi- ties and Exchange Commission filing. Mr. Chen and his Shanda Group company affiliates sold the shares Nov. 23 for between $8.66 and $9.08 per share, bringing in a total of $39.8 million. The move comes after he sold 5 million shares of CHS from Nov. 10-12 for $41.46 million. Mr. Chen, a pioneer in China's online gaming industry, began buying up shares of CHS in 2016. The investors last public comment on CHS was in 2018, when Shanda Group said it had a "good relationship" with CHS. n

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