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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services started financially penalizing hospitals for higher-than-expected 30-day readmission rates in 2012. Although readmissions for the targeted conditions have decreased, this change has been accompanied by a concomitant increase in emergency department (ED) and observational visits, leading some experts to suggest that the system is being “gamed.” To examine this issue further, researchers used 2019 data from 3200 hospitals and compared the current 30-day readmissions metric for myocardial infarction, heart failure, and pneumonia against a new metric — “excess days in acute care” (EDAC). EDAC, which is reported as “hospital return days” on the Hospital Compare website, aims to account for all types o…