Making Money by Making Mistakes
About one in every five Medicare patients discharged from hospitals need to be readmitted within 30 days, according to a new study.
As previously reported, Geisinger Health System in central Pennsylvania has a warranty on its surgeries, including its heart surgeries so payers don't pay for the same care twice. So how much does Medicare pay for this warranty? Zero. Zip. Nada.
So naturally, other hospitals are not interested in following Geisinger's example.
So Medicare gets all the waste and inefficiency it pays for.
The NCPA is the only organization I know of that has made the (obvious?) suggestion that we should quit penalizing what we like. We should pay Geisinger more and invite other hospitals to be paid more as well if they reduce taxpayer costs and at the same time raise the quality of care.
Let’s see. Medicare pays hospitals for their mistakes. But it won’t pay them for not making mistakes? This is another “beam me up” candidate. See above.