Researchers slammed newly imposed fines on hospitals with high readmission rates of patients who have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), saying the move will do far more harm than good.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released a new list of regulations regarding 2015 payment rates that would penalize hospitals that readmit payments often who have COPD and patients with hip or knee replacement surgery. CMS, which released 3,000 pages of regulations, said hospitals are readmitting patients too often — one in five require re-hospitalization only a month after being discharged. As a result, CMS wants to fine 2,600 hospitals to force them to improve care in these areas, according to Counsel & Heal.

However, the University of Michigan warned that the policy may do more harm than good in research into how the fine might improve COPD patient care.

Study author Michael Sjoding, M.D., who is a pulmonary and critical care fellow at the University of Michigan Medical School’s Department of Internal Medicine, said that Medicare is “trying to improve patient care and reduce waste, but the hospitals they are penalizing may be the ones who need the most help to do so.”

The study based its findings on three years of data from 3,018 hospitals, and the research team concluded that the new fines would significantly impact teaching and safety-net hospitals who have high COPD readmission rates, because they more often treat poor or “medically complex” COPD patients who have higher readmission rates due to a variety of outside factors.

For example, poor patients may not be able to afford necessary medications or have an unstable housing situation, forcing their readmission. In other words, the hospitals who are facing the new fines may not be able to do anything to prevent them, the study concluded.

The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine published the study.