We’ve written numerous times about hospital readmissions—circumstances that prompt a hospital patient to re-enter the hospital within a short time of his or her release. Often, readmission rates are a clue about the overall quality of care provided by a facility: When patients come back too often and too soon, it can be a sign that they weren't fixed right on the first go-round. And because hospital care is notoriously expensive, readmissions can signal the cost-effectiveness of a health-care provider network.

Sometimes a patient’s problems require returning for in-patient care. But sometimes readmitting someone to a hospital is less a matter of absolute need than lax oversight. As noted in a recent report by NPR, WNYC and Kaiser Health News, unnecessary hospital readmissions are associated with worse treatment and health outcomes as well as higher costs to taxpayers.

As the NPR/WNYC/Kaiser report makes clear, paying for avoidable care is undesirable if you're the government or a private insurance company. But for paid caregivers, repeat customers are a lucrative market. “Dr. Eric Coleman of the University of Colorado says for too long hospitals have benefited from a system that rewards them for excessive care. A hospital might get 15 to 25 percent of its revenue from readmissions.”