The share of patients who returned to any hospital within 30 days of being discharged, risk-adjusted for how sick they were.
Why this matters to you
It counts returns to any hospital, not just the one that discharged the patient, so a hospital cannot improve its figure by sending returning patients elsewhere. But a high rate can reflect a community with poor access to follow-up care as much as the hospital's own work — risk adjustment accounts for diagnoses, not for poverty, housing or whether anyone is at home to help.
Official source
The authoritative definition and current rules are published here:
Rules and figures change. Where this page and the official source disagree, the official source is correct — and we would like to know, so please tell us.
Important:
hospiguide.org is an independent informational resource. It is not affiliated
with, endorsed by, or connected to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
(CMS), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or Medicare.
This site does not provide medical advice and should not be used to decide
whether to seek or delay care — talk to a clinician about your situation.
Quality measures come from CMS public datasets, released August 13, 2026, and reflect
care delivered during earlier reporting periods, so they may not describe a
hospital as it operates today.
Always verify details at
Medicare.gov Care Compare
or by calling 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227).