Medicare evaluated the readmission rates of the nation’s hospitals in determining the fourth year of penalties in the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program. Medicare will apply the penalties to all its payments for patient stays between Oct. 1, 2015, and Sept. 30, 2016. In this chart, the first column after the state name shows the total number of hospitals penalized in each state. That is followed by the percent of each state’s hospitals that were penalized. That calculation includes hospitals exempted from the fines, such as those serving veterans and children. The final column shows the average penalty for penalized hospitals. *The penalties do not apply to Maryland hospitals, as that state has a unique reimbursement arrangement with Medicare, and thus Maryland is not included in this table.