Clinical Conditions With Frequent, Costly Hospital Readmissions by Payer

Overall hospital utilization reduced substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic because of both patient and system factors.

These included delays in seeking care, stay-at-home orders, and a pause in elective admissions. Nevertheless, the 30-day all-cause hospital readmission rate remained stable in 2020 compared with the prepandemic period. Therefore, it is important to identify the clinical conditions associated with frequent, costly hospital readmissions during the pandemic year 2020.

Clinical Conditions With Frequent, Costly Hospitals Readmissions by Payer, a statistical brief from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, presents national estimates on clinical conditions with the highest hospital readmission counts, rates, and costs among adults.

Highlights:

• In 2020, at index admission, septicemia, heart failure, and diabetes with complications accounted for almost 20 percent of all adult hospital readmissions.
• In 2020, COVID-19 emerged as one of the top 10 conditions at index admission with the highest number of adult readmissions.
• In 2020, adult hospitalizations for sickle cell trait/anemia had the highest rate of 30-day all-cause readmissions among patients with an expected payer of Medicare or Medicaid (37.7 and 41.0 per 100 index admissions, respectively).
• In 2020, schizophrenia and alcohol-related disorders were among the top five conditions with the highest number of readmissions for adult stays with an expected payer of Medicaid or self-pay/no charge.
• In 2020, complications of transplanted organs or tissue at index admission had the highest average cost of 30-day all-cause readmissions among adult hospitalizations with an expected payer of Medicare or private insurance.

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