Twenty percent of Medicare inpatients rehospitalized within 30 days

Unplanned rehospitalizations of Medicare beneficiaries within 30 days leaving the hospital cost the program $17.4 billion in 2004, according to a study published April 2 on the web site of the New England Journal of Medicine. This equals about 17 percent of all hospital payments from Medicare in 2004. Almost one-fifth (19.6 percent) of beneficiaries discharged from a hospital that year were rehospitalized within 30 days. Only about 10 percent of these rehospitalizations were planned.