Hospital readmissions have contributed significantly to rising healthcare costs in the United States. To curb rising costs, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services introduced the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP), a penalty-based program designed to decrease healthcare costs. This research aims to determine if the HRRP has successfully reduced healthcare costs and increased quality outcomes associated with total knee arthroplasty (TKA) or total hip arthroplasty (THA) as defined by a reduction in readmission rates, postoperative complications, and overall costs. Although a positive correlation has been shown between outcomes and costs post-HRRP, more research is needed to tease out the impact of HRRP on these findings, given that these indicators were already positively trending before implementation
