Medicare patients with at least 10 chronic conditions are more than six times as likely to be readmitted to a hospital within 30 days as Medicare patients with one to four chronic conditions, according to a study in the Journal of Hospital Medicine.
Researchers examined a 5 percent sample of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries in the first nine months of 2008 to identify risk factors for 30-day readmission. Beneficiaries with 10 or more chronic conditions account for 8.9 percent of all beneficiaries, but make up 50.2 percent of all readmissions. Beneficiaries with five to nine chronic conditions represent 31.8 percent of all beneficiaries, but account for 45 percent of all readmissions.
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