Hospital readmissions are an important quality indicator1; however, Mull et al2 emphasize that, unlike for patients with an index admission for medical treatment, all-cause readmission is not an appropriate indicator of quality of care for postoperative patients. In a modified Delphi process, a multidisciplinary panel assessed diagnosis codes related to 30-day postoperative readmission in a Veterans Affairs population and found that one-third of postoperative readmissions are unlikely to reflect deficiencies in surgical quality. Their findings are similar to those reported by Marks and colleagues3 in a smaller pediatric population. As government and private payers implement pay-for-performance metrics, the current study cautions that not every surgical readmission reflects poor quality and not every readmission should be penalized.