Obamacare Incentives Push Hospitals to Keep Medicare Patients Healthy

Esther Redd, a 53-year-old Harlem resident, was admitted to New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital seven times from December 2012 to May 2013, spending a total of 24 days for medical conditions ranging from kidney failure to high blood pressure to diabetes. She had been missing doctors’ appointments, skipping her medications, and using the emergency room for basic care. “I was playing Russian roulette,” says Redd. “I wasn’t used to going to the doctor. I was used to being healthy and normal.”

Then in May, Redd’s name was added to a list of high-risk patients that wouldn’t have existed without the Affordable Care Act. Under Obamacare, hundreds of doctors’ groups and hospitals, including Mount Sinai, have started receiving financial incentives from the government to keep Medicare patients healthy—and face penalties when they are readmitted to the hospital too soon.