Recent reductions in hospital readmission rates have been attributed to the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program. However, admission rates also declined during the same period. We found that because the probability of an admission occurring soon after another is lower when there are fewer admissions per patient, the reduction in admission rates may explain much of the reduction in readmission rates.
Keywords: Admission rates; Beneficiaries; Fee-for-service; Health policy; Hospitals; Medicare; Medicare savings programs; Payment; Quality of care; Readmission rates.