It's easy, they just hang this at the ER and main entrances:
Posted on 08/24/2012 5:37:13 AM PDT by GlockThe Vote
A provision of ObamaCare is set to punish roughly two-thirds of U.S. hospitals 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?"
(Excerpt) Read more at health.foxnews.mobi ...
Please ignore previous message.
Liked your message.
Hospitals can mitigate the readmission problem by keeping the patients in the hospital longer, BUT that puts them and the doctors at risk for being economically inefficient....longer stays result in demerits which reduce Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement fees.
Why do I feel that Washington is being run by lily white administrators and college professors who brought the cities of Detroit and East Saint Louis to their CURRENT condition?
I hear that a lot from people who can't articulate a coherent response.
They could do what obama said and just give the person a pill and ship em off.
It’s apparent that you know too little about the subject to have an intelligent conversation from your few posts here. I leave you to your opinion.
Why thank you. And I'll leave you to the circus music in your head.
Now you both are totally correct. Having just been IN the hospital myself the buzz is horrendous from the staff and physicians against Ozippy death panels and rules/regulations which deny physicians being in charge of your care. VOTE folks, VOTE GOP. Don't waste your energy on showing the GOP for forcing Romney on us. By his Paul Ryan pick alone, he shows more guts that McCain did in his little finger.
YES Sarah WAS the only one with guts in 2008, saying pal around with terrorists. Sarah was right on and she should come out and say “I told you so” but she has her own ways of reacting. McCain shut her down. Disgusting individual he was.
Hospitals are under much pressure by the entities that are paying for the healthcare to get them out of the door that often patients are sent home before they are ready.
It has happened twice to my wife after two totally separate surgeries. There is a fine balance between getting the patient out the door and having them well enough so they will not be readmitted. Hospitals are in a difficult position.
Of course it would help more if they didn’t use contaminated mesh to patch a hernia and have to go back in to take it out and treat the raging infection that the contaminated mesh caused.
Just experienced the preliminary ramifications of this regulation. When mom’s stage 4 bone cancer resulted in two crushed vertebrae while 5 hours away from home, she was admitted to an out of town hospital. Even though “pallative care” and pain management is her only recourse, the hospital would not discharge her because “they didn’t want to see her back in the emergency room.” It was stressed by every doctor and nurse on her case that Medicare would NOT pay for her stay if we left against medical advice (AMA). Before it was over, the hospital admin finally fessed up that hospital practitioners are TRAINED to say this even though it is not true. We were forced to leave AMA much the same way she was forced to participate in govt. Mediscare even though she had private insurance/financial means.
She is home now, after a week of being held PRISONER and subjected to unnecessary expensive tests (charged to John Q. TAXPAYER) with no access to HER doctors (familiar with her case) or home while family members incurred HUGE travel/lodging expenses.
My advice…don’t get sick or hurt while out of town especially under these new BS regulations. Hospitals will refuse or be hesitant to discharge terminally ill patients (who WILL be readmitted FOR THE SAME ILLNESS) because these huge fines affect their bottom line.
Hospitals are TRAINING THEIR STAFF TO LIE as they gear up for ObamaCare. Be Warned!
There's already a mechanism in place for that in Home Heath Care service providers. But in practice once the pt is discharged from the hospital, and returned under the charge of the primary doc for ongoing monitoring, assessments don't flow back to the hospital/hospitalists in most cases. Or, at best, indirectly, and therefore not timely. That can be remedied
And so long as risk-adjusted measures are fairly factored in for complex cases and those with known high re-admission rts, the vision is true. Even the decision to re-admit to hospital exposes a pt to heightened risk, and isn't a desirable goal, with no regard to treatment costs. We should not be clamoring for more hospital stays!
Readmission isn't a stand-alone outcome model though important. In practice this can serve to maximize quality of care during hospitalization which is a good thing. Anyone who thinks Medicare guidelines don't chart the course of care for its subscribers already are uninformed. So do those carriers in the pvt sector, btw. It can be, and often is, equally restrictive depending upon your plan. (If you're a politician, for example, the sky's the limit but they are a select few- elite).
I'm not advocating for the Medicare pgm, far from it, but for a large subset it's controlling and entrenched; vigilant oversight and informed debate is vital; the best we can do for now.
Also note these changes are being driven, really, not by Obama or his policy czars but by Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Improving health care delivery seems to be the goal here and outcomes based models are the best measurement tools.
Patients who return to the hospital are the ones who need help the most. This little ruling is not only going to cause deaths - it's going to cause massive patient suffering... And it won't save money. Doctors who aren't demons from hell will keep patients in the hospital a few extra days to make sure they don't have to come back. So this newest horror won't even save money. It won't save enough to cover the costs of adding another few hundred thousand inner city gang bangers to Social Security Disability..
For all the horror and misery you liberal elites cause I hope this happens to you when you're sick and in need of care - and I hope it happens to your loved ones... I pray you will reap what you've sown. Eff you Obama, and eff all the horrible liberal control freaks who do you dirty work.
Yet there are some on this thread who think that's a small price to pay for increased "cost efficiencies".
I’ll answer one more time (just for kicks really).
Using my COPD example, a typical readmit for such a patient is shortness of breath. The hospital will treat the patient for the shortness of breath using palliative measures designed to comfort the patient but which do not really treat the condition. The patient could have stayed out of the hospital and received that same palliative care at a fraction of the cost and the same overall outcome in a different setting or at home. But THAT would be stupid, right?
New tagline...
And COPD is the only health condition hospitals treat? And shortness is the ONLY thing even COPD patients go back to the hospital for? Ever? Because you can think of a single instance where readmittance might not be necessary then we kill off everybody else? YOu are one sick puppy - but don’t try going to the hospital more than once to treat it.
I read somewhere that Rush said the country could in fact survive another 4 years of the Kenyan Marxist. I respectfully don't agree.
” RE :”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.”
This could be an unintentional side effect. What happens if the hospital refuses to admit a patient to avoid this? Do they get sued? Or they just limit how many medicare patients they have in the first place. “
All part of the plan so we all go crawling to fedgov.
As it is now there's safety in allowing people to go home because on the oft chance there's a problem, the patient can come back. This stupidity takes that away. So it will cost more AND likely cause massive suffering.
It's NOT like hospitals are so much fun people can't wait to get back... What are these liberal control freaks thinking?
The 'incentive' here would tend to encourage 'death' to the above... Next dems will rewrite laws so patient families can't sue. That's the other shoe. Citizens will still be able to sue doctors until they're taken over by ObamaCare - but they won't be able to sue hospitals. This plan will put the hospitals on the side of government - and pitted against doctors.
Another 'unintended consequence' will be very private hospitals that ONLY take people with private insurance...or seniors with supplemental insurance that covers excess costs.. In short, LIBERAL ELITES will find a way they can opt out of the horror.
In Communists countries, party members were treated as elitist - with the advantage of not having to pay more. Democrat elites will figure that one out... Eff 'em.
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