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I guess we need to give this time to see how it turns out.
I'm skeptical though that the threat of penalties is going to improve service.
Punishment is not a good incentive for improvement.
Considering that 100,000 needless deaths occur in hosptals every year, why shouldn't they be penalized? Isn't it time our hospitals cleaned up their act (literally)? It isn't like they don't get paid enough.
Considering that 100,000 needless deaths occur in hosptals every year, why shouldn't they be penalized? Isn't it time our hospitals cleaned up their act (literally)? It isn't like they don't get paid enough.
It's more along the lines of "The beatings will continue until moral improves."
The "Stick" approach doesn't always lead to better improvements.
This Obamacare bit is a little more tricky than anyone thought. We have now-
1. incentives to let people die outside the hospital, rather than re-admit them
2. cuts in medicare reimbursement, so that the vast majority of offices will no longer take medicare as of Jan 1st.
If you are over 65 and voting for Obama, you are slitting your own throat. You would have to be insane to support these measures.
Exactly. People over a certain age are being targetted here. Otherwise - why not have these rules across the board? Hospitals are being penalized only if they readmit older people.
They will benefit more if the patient dies than if they try to save the patient.
And yet the stick is the foundation of our legal system, is it not?
I'd compare it to other government programs, like NCLB rather than the legal system.
No one is going to jail here.
Take NCLB..hold back money if the school doesn't have passing grades.
Schools lower the bar to achieve those goals which is not what they really wanted.
Now what will happen when hospitals are paying out millions in penalties ?
Do they have that much extra money to do that and continue to operate ?
A provision of ObamaCare is set to punish roughly two-thirds of U.S. hospitals evaluated by Medicare starting this fall over high readmission rates, according to an analysis by Kaiser Health News.
Starting in October, Medicare will reduce reimbursements to hospitals with high 30-day readmission rates — which refers to patients who return within a month — by as much as 1 percent. The maximum penalty increases to 2 percent the following year and 3 percent in 2014.
Doctors are concerned the penalty is unfair, since sometimes they have to accept patients more than once in a brief period of time but could be penalized for doing so — even for accepting seniors who are sick.
“Among patients with heart failure, hospitals that have higher readmission rates actually have lower mortality rates,” said Sunil Kripalani, MD, a professor with Vanderbilt University Medical Center who studies hospital readmissions. “So, which would we rather have — a hospital readmission or a death?”
Good question? Right after the question, there’s this.
But according to federal government figures, nearly one in five Medicare patients is readmitted to a hospital within 30 days of release, costing taxpayers an estimated $17.5 billion.
“Readmissions has been a low-hanging fruit for Medicare,” said Jordan Rau, a staff writer with KHN, an editorially independent program of the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation. “They’ve been very unhappy that about 2 million Medicare beneficiaries are being readmitted every year between 30 days of discharge.”
Medicare evaluated readmission rates at 3,367 of the nation’s hospitals and will impose penalties on 2,211 starting in October, according to KHN.
What’s the priority here? If you want care for every single citizen, then don’t penalize hospitals for repeat visits. Now if costs becomes priority #1, then you appear to be OK with dying patients for the sake of the dollar.
What’s interesting is that this was the basis for the ObamaCare argument to begin with – people who are uninsured who are dying without sufficient care. So now the insurance barrier is removed and now the government starts penalizing the care providers. So you are taking money out of the hospitals ability to care for the patients.
Government needs to be removed from the revenue stream of the health care industry.
Says the msm....."We know it's in the bill, but you're fear mongering!"
A provision of ObamaCare is set to punish roughly two-thirds of U.S. hospitals evaluated by Medicare starting this fall over high readmission rates, according to an analysis by Kaiser Health News.
Starting in October, Medicare will reduce reimbursements to hospitals with high 30-day readmission rates — which refers to patients who return within a month — by as much as 1 percent. The maximum penalty increases to 2 percent the following year and 3 percent in 2014.
Doctors are concerned the penalty is unfair, since sometimes they have to accept patients more than once in a brief period of time but could be penalized for doing so — even for accepting seniors who are sick.
“Among patients with heart failure, hospitals that have higher readmission rates actually have lower mortality rates,” said Sunil Kripalani, MD, a professor with Vanderbilt University Medical Center who studies hospital readmissions. “So, which would we rather have — a hospital readmission or a death?”
Good question? Right after the question, there’s this.
But according to federal government figures, nearly one in five Medicare patients is readmitted to a hospital within 30 days of release, costing taxpayers an estimated $17.5 billion.
“Readmissions has been a low-hanging fruit for Medicare,” said Jordan Rau, a staff writer with KHN, an editorially independent program of the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation. “They’ve been very unhappy that about 2 million Medicare beneficiaries are being readmitted every year between 30 days of discharge.”
Medicare evaluated readmission rates at 3,367 of the nation’s hospitals and will impose penalties on 2,211 starting in October, according to KHN.
What’s the priority here? If you want care for every single citizen, then don’t penalize hospitals for repeat visits. Now if costs becomes priority #1, then you appear to be OK with dying patients for the sake of the dollar.
What’s interesting is that this was the basis for the ObamaCare argument to begin with – people who are uninsured who are dying without sufficient care. So now the insurance barrier is removed and now the government starts penalizing the care providers. So you are taking money out of the hospitals ability to care for the patients.
Government needs to be removed from the revenue stream of the health care industry.
Um huh...welcome to the new religion of Pelosi, Reid, and Obummer.
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