ACA penalties

Methodist Healthcare and St. Francis hospitals in the Memphis area will again lose a fraction of Medicare reimbursements under an Affordable Care Act provision that penalizes excess hospital re-admissions, says Kaiser Health News.

Methodist’s adult hospitals will be penalized 0.22 percent for the federal 2016 fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, down from 0.41 percent in 2015, according to an analysis released Monday by Kaiser, a nonprofit health policy news service.

St. Francis HospitalMemphis will be penalized 0.43 percent, compared with 0.45 percent this year; St. Francis Hospital-Bartlett will be shaved .08 percent, compared with 0.1 percent this year.

Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis has not been penalized since the readmissions program began in 2012, according to Kaiser.

Conditions in the government calculations include heart attacks, pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, total hip and total knee replacement.