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Actually the quicker you get out of the hospital, the better off you will tend to be -- you will get fewer dangerous infections in your own home where you're long acquainted with bacterial strains than in a hospital where you are exposed to many unfamiliar strains and terrible pathogens.
Not in all cases. The Nebraska legislature passed a law prohibiting "drive-through deliveries". So at the same time a 30-something relative of mine had a baby and got to stay in the hospital 48 hours, my 78 yo mother-in-law didn't get to stay 48 hrs after gall bladder surgery, when her caregiver at home was her 88 yo husband! A lot of Medicare patients have NO caregiver; they're on their own.
So medicare has been pushing to get people out of the hospital quicker, will now penalize hospitals for doing exactly what they wanted done when the patient invariably comes back to the hospital at a later date for the same ailment.
Things are really going to get interesting when the hospitals form ACOs under Obmacare and get paid a set amount of money per patient signed up with them (basically they will be an HMO) regardless of what procedures are performed. The incentive will be to deliver no care at all.
Get ready for Lasix pushes in the ER for your chronic CHF patients. Don't dare risk admitting them as CHFers notoriously get readmitted often and it will cost you dearly.
We've got some fun times ahead in the health care system
Hope the insurance companies will go along with longer stays.
It only effects medicare, if you are under private insurance it doesn't matter. What this will mean is that hospitals will be more reluctant to release patients, so they will stay longer, which will cost all of us more. If they can't get it from medicare, they'll just charge the uninsured and the privately insured more. You don't think hospitals are going to lose money, do you?
It only effects medicare, if you are under private insurance it doesn't matter. What this will mean is that hospitals will be more reluctant to release patients, so they will stay longer, which will cost all of us more. If they can't get it from medicare, they'll just charge the uninsured and the privately insured more. You don't think hospitals are going to lose money, do you?
Often times, as Medicare goes so goes the private insurers.
Often times, as Medicare goes so goes the private insurers.
Only if it helps the bottom line, such as drive-by birthing. Forcing doctors and hospitals to extend hospital stays will cost private insurers more, so I wouldn't count on it. Besides - they don't have fining power, only the government does.
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Originally Posted by wutitiz
Again we've got someone sitting in Washinton DC writing rules and effectively making decisions for a doctor and patient that might be several thousand miles away, based on the DC guy's crunching of numbers. Is this really the future of medicine that we want?
Future? Do you really believe number crunchers in insurance companies haven't been making similar decisions for some time now?
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