Readmissions performance and penalty experience of safety-net hospitals under Medicare’s Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program

Table 1 Comparison of hospital characteristics of safety-net hospitals vs. non-safety-net hospitals, 2009

	Safety-net hospitals		Non-safety-net hospitals		P value^§ (safety-net vs. non-safety-net hospitals)
	(n = 479)		(n = 1436)
	n	%	n	%
Disproportionate Share Hospital index: Mean (Standard Deviation)	0.54 (0.082)		0.20 (0.173)		< 0.001
Teaching hospital^a	120	25.05	121	8.43	< 0.001
Ownership					< 0.001
Non-profit	250	52.19	1042	72.56
Govt. non-fed	121	25.26	141	9.82
For-profit	108	22.55	253	17.62
Medicare share inpatient days Mean (Standard Deviation)	0.41 (0.006)		0.52 (0.003)		< 0.001
Medicaid share inpatient days Mean (Standard Deviation)	0.29 (0.006)		0.15 (0.002)		< 0.001
Bed size					0.001
< 99	63	13.15	270	18.80
100-199	119	24.84	415	28.90
> =200	297	62.00	751	52.30
Region					< 0.001
Northeast	72	15.03	301	20.96
Midwest	62	12.94	395	27.51
South	200	41.75	515	35.86
West	145	30.27	225	15.67

1) Hospitals appearing in either the AMI, heart failure, or pneumonia cohort are included for the findings in this table
2) Safety-net hospitals: hospitals that fall in the top quartile of the Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) index; non-safety-net hospitals: hospitals in the bottom three quartiles of the DSH index
3) §t-test for continuous variables and chi-square test for categorical variables
4) ^aMember of Council of Teaching Hospital of the Association of American Medical Colleges

ISSN: 1472-6963