Medicare penalties hit hospitals (penalties are part of efforts under the Affordable Care Act)

Journal Gazette ^ | February 8, 2020 | ROSA SALTER RODRIGUEZ

[lastchance]

You are on the money. One unintended consequence may be that people are kept in the hospital too long for fear they will be readmitted if discharged too soon. This actually increases their exposure to hospital borne infections which are harder to treat and eradicate.

I don’t know if the laws/rules allow for follow up home-care by a nurse or other qualified health care worker. But letting such care to be covered by Medicare certainly would be smarter and more cost efficient than these Catch22 rules.

[minnesota_bound]

Why are the republicans still supporting obamacare?
Must be a lot of bribe money involved.

[rollo tomasi]

Medicare, Medicaid, and other government reimbursement programs (Especially Tricare) are economically unfeasible; why are people surprised at these regulations?

Our government can only handle so much leverage before the powers that be cut benefits/reimbursement for the individuals, physicians, and hospital systems.

You get what you vote for, including "conservative" pie-in-the-sky programs where inflation, purchasing power of the dollar, higher labor costs, and higher technological/supply costs are totally ignored.

[Vaduz]

Indeed

[Texas Fossil]

I am not blaming the doctors or the hospital. I am blaming nutty rules that often make no sense and blaming blind bureaucrats. Unelected, unaccountable and powerful.

I’ve been very very fortunate, I am 72 and take no prescription meds, have not been in the hospital as a patient since I was a child. For past 10-15 years, it seems like all I have done is take care of sick family members. Have no regrets about that, but I’ve seen my share of nutty things happen with care for my relatives.

I have great respect for “good” doctors. They do it in spite of drowning in buracracy in medical schools, medical regulations, hospital bureaucracy and the huge bureaucracy of Medicare and Medicaid. Not to mention car chasing lawyers. (there are good lawyers just like there are good doctors.