The federal government sometimes withholds money from safety-net hospitals because they fail to meet certain standards.

A piece in governing.com asks whether those standards should, at least in some cases, be lowered.

Penalties “handed down by CMS are part of the Affordable Care Act {and} are meant to motivate hospitals to correct procedures so as to avoid patient safety violations. But the problem with these penalties, some health policy experts say, is that they don’t take into account the particular challenges that individual hospitals face.”

“Most of the penalized hospitals take care of the poorest and sickest,” Ashish Jha,  M.D., a  Harvard professor who focuses on patient safety, told the news service.

“Jha and others argue that CMS should add a risk adjustment factor. Until then, safety-net and academic-centered hospitals {with the most challenging patients} will continue to get slapped with the most penalties.”

“Adding to the hospitals’ exasperation is the fact that there is little information about whether the penalties have actually improved health outcomes.”

To read the piece, please hit this link.