Revolving Door Medicine
More evidence that providers do what they get paid to do:
Using Medicare data on more than 1 million hip surgeries done between 1991 and 2008, the researchers found that hospital stays are now averaging under four days, compared to more than nine days in the 20th century. However, the number of hip-surgery patients discharged to a skilled nursing facility nearly doubled during that time frame, from 17.8 percent to 34.3 percent; hospital readmission rates went from 5.9 percent to 8.5 percent; and the percentage of those discharged home decreased dramatically, from 68 percent to 48.2 percent.
Full article on hospital readmissions after hip replacements.
Good point. This is exactly what you would expect with DRG pricing.
I’m sure all the institutions are cooperating in order to maximize reimbursements for the provider community collectively.
Makes perfect economic sense.
Twenty years ago I worked in a hospital whose reason for existing was to take the very sick (but stable) Medicare patients from ICU and CCU from a parent hospital. These very sick patients were outliers that would drastically exceed the average length of stay for their DRG. By being discharged from the parent hospital and admitted to a subsidiary, the patients were cost reimbursed based on a TEFRA limit.
Interesting post. Maybe even a sad post.