Reducing Hospital Readmissions Using AI

Hospital readmissions are costly in more ways than one. Financially, hospital readmissions cost around $26 billion to Medicare and $80 billion for self-insured employers. At a deeper level, high readmission rates are indicative of a breakdown in care.

The Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) is a Medicare program that uses readmission rates as a target to incentivize hospitals to provide high quality of care. As a result, hospitals are penalized if readmission rates are sub-standard. In 2021, 83% of evaluated hospitals were penalized for having readmission rates that were too high, with an average payment cut of 0.69% per patient.

What are some of the root causes that are driving readmissions? Many of them can be categorized as issues with health literacy, care management and behavioral health, including:

1. Patient confusion about next steps or their medications, resulting in not taking their medication properly
2. Miscommunication from hospital staff
3. Improper or untimely follow-up care

Around 50% of readmissions are thought to be preventable through in-home follow-up care. This often requires a significant amount of time from a variety of team members, including spending more time with patients during initial treatment and follow-up. However, this isn't realistic for many organizations.

The solution? AI health assistants.

MayaMD is a robust AI health assistant that gives patients 24/7 access to symptom assessments, treatment advice, telemedicine, patient education and more - all from your phone or computer.

Learn more about how Maya can help reduce readmissions by contacting us today.

‍