Medicare Patients - Vote, as if your life depends on it.

Millions of americans will be effected by a little known part of the Obamacare that went into effect this week Hospitals will be fined big if too many of Medicare patients have to return to the hospital within 30 days. Many people do have to go back to the hospital for followup care.

Obamacare push the hospital to discharge the patient as soon as possible. The penalty is going to apply to all Medicare patients.

What about care? If the patient has pneumonia many times the hospital will send the patient home but it can get worse and pneumonia can kill you. If the pneumonia patient is sent home but if they get worse the the hospital is not allowed to re-admit the patient or the hospital will be fined for re-admitting the Medicare patient.

Anyone who post that Obamacare is good does not have a clue about healthcare.

Obamacare,
This is very dangerous to everyone. Discharges and re-admissions happen because of complications that went unforeseen. Now a hospital will be very hesitant to re-admit you because they will get hit with a huge fine. Do you think you will stay young forever? Are you on disability? This gives others the power to make decisions on your healthcare treatment. You would be very naive to think that business decisions will take precedence over your health. Welcome to Obamacare.

We Have to Pass the Bill So That You Can Find Out What Is In It" .... Nancy Pelosi


Starting Monday, Medicare will fine hospitals that have too many patients readmitted within 30 days of discharge due to complications. The penalties are part of a broader push under President Barack Obama’s health care law to improve quality while also trying to cut costs.

About two-thirds of the hospitals serving Medicare patients, or some 2,200 facilities, will be hit with penalties averaging around $125,000 per facility this coming year, according to government estimates.

Many people will die before their time because of this law.

http://citizenwells.wordpress.com/2012/09/30/obamacare-fines-begin-monday-october-1-2012-medicare-will-fine-hospitals-penalties-will-average-125000-per-facility-this-coming-year-taxpayers-hit-again/

Follow up care after hospitalization is generally done with your primary care physician not the hospital

lonewolf said:

Many people will die before their time because of this law.

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I thought that was the idea, it helps contain the costs. The hospitals are being incentivized to let patients die; they save the cost of the cost of the fine, ObamaCare saves the cost of treatment.

Diogenes said:

I thought that was the idea, it helps contain the costs. The hospitals are being incentivized to let patients die; they save the cost of the cost of the fine, ObamaCare saves the cost of treatment.

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I worked in a hospital for 20 years. Anyone that disputes that patients will need to be re-emitted within 30 days of hospital release does not have a clue what you are talking about. Patients are people and one thing I know is that people who seem to be doing ok can crash quickly when you do not expect it.

Hospitals were already encouraged to send people home as soon as possible, now when they do, that patient risks having a relapse and needing to go into the hospital again. Now because of this law, many will be turned away when they should be re-admitted.

There are also problems with Obamacare that we don't even know yet. If you are really sick you better dig in and claw the doorway as they try to send you out the door because you can not return for 30 days or the hospital will be fined.


People will die, end of story.

Diogenes said:

I thought that was the idea, it helps contain the costs. The hospitals are being incentivized to let patients die; they save the cost of the cost of the fine, ObamaCare saves the cost of treatment.

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I guess former Florida Congressman Alan Grayson(D) was correct in WHAT the plan was. He was just wrong about WHO'S plan it was.

-"If you get sick, DIE QUICKLY!"-

lonewolf said:

I worked in a hospital for 20 years. Anyone that disputes that patients will need to be re-emitted within 30 days of hospital release does not have a clue what you are talking about. Patients are people and one thing I know is that people who seem to be doing ok can crash quickly when you do not expect it.

Hospitals were already encouraged to send people home as soon as possible, now when they do, that patient risks having a relapse and needing to go into the hospital again. Now because of this law, many will be turned away when they should be re-admitted.

There are also problems with Obamacare that we don't even know yet. If you are really sick you better dig in and claw the doorway as they try to send you out the door because you can not return for 30 days or the hospital will be fined.


People will die, end of story.

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That does not make any sense according to what you are saying. Let us say I went to the hospital and got released and a few days later crashed. What happens? Well, the ambulance comes, takes me to the hospital, and I am admitted. Do you really expect us to believe that the ER is going to be refusing the dying at the door because of some small fine which will turn into a huge lawsuit? Are they really going to prefer a wrongful death lawsuit over a fine? Their insurance companies will surely tell them to admit and argue over the fine instead of arguing over millions in lawsuits.

lonewolf said:

Millions of americans will be effected by a little known part of the Obamacare that went into effect this week Hospitals will be fined big if too many of Medicare patients have to return to the hospital within 30 days. Many people do have to go back to the hospital for followup care.

Obamacare push the hospital to discharge the patient as soon as possible. The penalty is going to apply to all Medicare patients.

What about care? If the patient has pneumonia many times the hospital will send the patient home but it can get worse and pneumonia can kill you. If the pneumonia patient is sent home but if they get worse the the hospital is not allowed to re-admit the patient or the hospital will be fined for re-admitting the Medicare patient.

Anyone who post that Obamacare is good does not have a clue about healthcare.

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Wait a second. Obamacare creates a fine for hospitals that discharge patients too early, and you're saying Obamacare is trying to get hospitals to dicharge them as soon as possible?

Not only that, but you're saying this penalty will be paid for by Medicare patients?

Jack Fabulous said:

I guess former Florida Congressman Alan Grayson(D) was correct in WHAT the plan was. He was just wrong about WHO'S plan it was.

-"If you get sick, DIE QUICKLY!"-

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That pretty well covers it. Thank you.

lonewolf said:

I worked in a hospital for 20 years. Anyone that disputes that patients will need to be re-emitted within 30 days of hospital release does not have a clue what you are talking about. Patients are people and one thing I know is that people who seem to be doing ok can crash quickly when you do not expect it.

Hospitals were already encouraged to send people home as soon as possible, now when they do, that patient risks having a relapse and needing to go into the hospital again. Now because of this law, many will be turned away when they should be re-admitted.

There are also problems with Obamacare that we don't even know yet. If you are really sick you better dig in and claw the doorway as they try to send you out the door because you can not return for 30 days or the hospital will be fined.

People will die, end of story.

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Doesn't this also encourage hospitals not to release a patient too soon--which may be the issue being addressed by the rule? IDK, I hate obamacare but I do not see this is necessarily a bad thing for people in terminal decline.

lonewolf said:

I worked in a hospital for 20 years. Anyone that disputes that patients will need to be re-emitted within 30 days of hospital release does not have a clue what you are talking about. Patients are people and one thing I know is that people who seem to be doing ok can crash quickly when you do not expect it.

Hospitals were already encouraged to send people home as soon as possible, now when they do, that patient risks having a relapse and needing to go into the hospital again. Now because of this law, many will be turned away when they should be re-admitted.

There are also problems with Obamacare that we don't even know yet. If you are really sick you better dig in and claw the doorway as they try to send you out the door because you can not return for 30 days or the hospital will be fined.

People will die, end of story.

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I think you've completely misrepresented the issue. Hospitals won't be turning down any re-admissions. They can't or they'll be up to their neck in alligators.

Hospitals are being encouraged, by this 'fine' business, to inform patients and their families more thoroughly about after-care and to get home health care involved right from the get-go. Those are both excellent goals. The fact that hospitals will be incentivized to do so by fining them makes sense to me. If you send someone home with pneumonia before they should be and they are re-admitted because they were released and taken off inter-venous antibiotics too early, they should have to pay a penalty. That's poor medicine.

lonewolf said:

Hospitals were already encouraged to send people home as soon as possible, now when they do, that patient risks having a relapse and needing to go into the hospital again. Now because of this law, many will be turned away when they should be re-admitted.

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There you go. Now you know why the change was put in place. Now hospitals have an incentive to keep patients until they are really ready to be released instead of having a perverse incentive to boot them out as soon as possible.

straykatz said:

Follow up care after hospitalization is generally done with your primary care physician not the hospital

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Except poor people. So it is only poor people Obama want to kill off. Part of his debt reduction plan and how to cover some of that $700 billion taken away.

joko104 said:

Except poor people. So it is only poor people Obama want to kill off. Part of his debt reduction plan and how to cover some of that $700 billion taken away.

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Do you even bother trying to reconcile all the contrary and incompatible beliefs that roll around your head? Obama needs to buy votes from poor people but he wants to kill them, and he's trying to kill them by penalizing hospitals that send them home too early.

How do you even talk to someone like this?

Oh please be serious. I'm a Medicare patient and they DO ship you out ASAP and I agree with that. If you're back in 30 days, they didn't do it right OR you didn't follow your release instructions.

On a more positive note, killing off poor people will enable greater tax reductions for the upper classes which will greatly reduce the whining about taxation.

joko104 said:

Except poor people. So it is only poor people Obama want to kill off. Part of his debt reduction plan and how to cover some of that $700 billion taken away.

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Deuce said:

Do you even bother trying to reconcile all the contrary and incompatible beliefs that roll around your head? Obama needs to buy votes from poor people but he wants to kill them, and he's trying to kill them by penalizing hospitals that send them home too early.

How do you even talk to someone like this?

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Please link to where I said Obama wants to buy poor people's vote.

Pneumonia - one of those listed - is treated by antibodics. Each person needs different antibodics and it unknown which is going to work. Other than taking antibodics - unless the pneumonia is severe - the patient is sent home. Under the Obama plan, either people will just sit in the hospital day after day after day after day after day after day - for no reason - or the doctor makes a live or die crap-shoot guess of which antibodic.
Stitches and staples do not require hospital stay, but generally need to be removed before 30 days or the are grown over and can cause infections. Have people sit in the hospital for 2 weeks just waiting to have stitches and staples removed.

Telling someone who had heart surgery either 1.) stay in the hospital for 30 days or 2.) do not come back for a month under any circumstance.

ANY treatment that requires antibodics requires a return if the initial prescribed antibodics don't work. Doctors tend to start with the weakest that might work to avoid a person building up an antibodic intolerant or rendering them not working anymore.

Under Obama's plan of only 1 visit every 30 days allowed seems to require that a doctor 1.) prescribe every possible drug a person might need and teaching each patient how to diagnois which ones are working and which are not and 2.) teach each patient how to diagnois possible complications themselves. Every patient should be prescribed an X-ray machine, CatScan machine, and a blood testing lab to they can follow up themselves.

What is being eliminated is follow up visits to insure the person has been cured or healed. Medicare patients will have to do post op and post treatment examinations on themselves.

I can only see it as extreme Democratic partisan hackery to claim that allowing only 1 hospital visit a month and fine/penalizing post surgery or treatment examinations for heart attacks and heart surgery, pneumonia and strokes is an improvement in medical care.

Outlawing anyone having medical complications and requiring all antibodics cure everything for every one isn't good medical care.

Most people do NOT want to sit in a hospital for days just to see if they are fully cured. My wife is often having to go to doctors for many, many reasons. Among it all, she often gets walking pneumonia or pneumonia, plus bronchitis. Not only would she refuse to stay in the hospital for days - she's not that lazy for one thing, but it would be absurd. However, she does return after she believes she is cured. Fortunately, she's a cash-patient and goes to doctors outside the federal care system.

Except for the now rare trips to the emergency room, EVERY doctor she goes to has a sign in the lobby reading the doctors there do NOT accept:
Medicare/Medicad
Humana
Workman's Comp injuries
Auto Injuries

They want to be doctors - not secretaries and clerks fighting the government for their fees - and they don't want to be tools of lawyers in lawsuits - and they do want to be paid.

The Obama 1-visit-per-month rule for Medicare is another downgrading of indigent and Medicare health care - and another reason less and less doctors will be willing to see Medicare patients. I do not know of ANY doctor that does not want a post-treatment examination after essentially any treatment of any ailment or injury.

The rule also puts doctors into a Catch22 between federal penalties for followup examinations and lawsuits being sued for not doing followup examinations. Lawyer Obama might like that Catch22 as a way to punish rich doctors and take their money one way or another.

MaggieD said:

I think you've completely misrepresented the issue. Hospitals won't be turning down any re-admissions. They can't or they'll be up to their neck in alligators.

Hospitals are being encouraged, by this 'fine' business, to inform patients and their families more thoroughly about after-care and to get home health care involved right from the get-go. Those are both excellent goals. The fact that hospitals will be incentivized to do so by fining them makes sense to me. If you send someone home with pneumonia before they should be and they are re-admitted because they were released and taken off inter-venous antibiotics too early, they should have to pay a penalty. That's poor medicine.

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What home health care?

joko104 said:

What home health care?

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Mom's 85 years old. Last time she went into the hospital, a year or so ago, she was in for two days and shuffled off home. She was actually fine. But. They had a home healthcare nurse stop by twice a week for two weeks to make sure she was doing okay. All paid for by Medicare.

I'd also point out that when I had surgery about a year ago, I myself was in the hospital for two days and had a nurse coming three times a week for 4 weeks. Paid for by my hospitalization.

joko104 said:

Telling someone who had heart surgery either 1.) stay in the hospital for 30 days or 2.) do not come back for a month under any circumstance.

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Nice strawman, but that's not how it works. The penalty addresses EXCESS readmissions. There isn't a penalty for each readmission.

joko104 said:

Pneumonia - one of those listed - is treated by antibodics. Each person needs different antibodics and it unknown which is going to work. Other than taking antibodics - unless the pneumonia is severe - the patient is sent home. Under the Obama plan, either people will just sit in the hospital day after day after day after day after day after day - for no reason - or the doctor makes a live or die crap-shoot guess of which antibodic.

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Hospitals cannot keep patients day-after-day-after day to avoid re-admission. You have a completely wrong conception of the new regulations. I would also like to see a link that indicates what you say is true about antibiotics for pneumonia being a crap shoot. There are standard antibiotics that work. If it's viral pneumonia, no antibiotics work.

Stitches and staples do not require hospital stay, but generally need to be removed before 30 days or the are grown over and can cause infections. Have people sit in the hospital for 2 weeks just waiting to have stitches and staples removed.

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Stitches and staples are not removed at the hospital. That's what your doctor's for. OMG, what have you been reading??

ANY treatment that requires antibodics requires a return if the initial prescribed antibodics don't work. Doctors tend to start with the weakest that might work to avoid a person building up an antibodic intolerant or rendering them not working anymore.

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Again, I think this is a misconception on your part. There's no such thing as a "weak antibiotic." Certain antibiotics are prescribed at dosages that protocol suggests when someone has pneumonia, as an example. Generally, you are sent home right from the ER unless your pneumonia is very serious; i.e., you let it go one for days and days and days before seeking treatment.

Under Obama's plan of only 1 visit every 30 days allowed seems to require that a doctor 1.) prescribe every possible drug a person might need and teaching each patient how to diagnois which ones are working and which are not and 2.) teach each patient how to diagnois possible complications themselves. Every patient should be prescribed an X-ray machine, CatScan machine, and a blood testing lab to they can follow up themselves.

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Again, I'm not sure where you're getting your information, but it is not correct. Have you been reading nutzy emails?

What is being eliminated is follow up visits to insure the person has been cured or healed. Medicare patients will have to do post op and post treatment examinations on themselves.

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That's not true either. My mom's doctor will prescribe a medication, tell her to come back right away if she doesn't feel better in three or four days, and schedule a 30-day follow-up. He also explains to her that if, for some reason, the medication doesn't agree with her that she should call his office.

MaggieD said:

Mom's 85 years old. Last time she went into the hospital, a year or so ago, she was in for two days and shuffled off home. She was actually fine. But. They had a home healthcare nurse stop by twice a week for two weeks to make sure she was doing okay. All paid for by Medicare.

I'd also point out that when I had surgery about a year ago, I myself was in the hospital for two days and had a nurse coming three times a week for 4 weeks. Paid for by my hospitalization.

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That, for the most part, isn't available around here.

Why is nurses traveling to your houses cheaper than to examine someone in the hospital - where there also are doctors and equipment to deal with and best detect complications?

MaggieD said:

Again, I think this is a misconception on your part. There's no such thing as a "weak antibiotic. An antibiotic is prescribed at dosages that protocol suggests when someone has pneumonia, as an example. Generally, you are sent home right from the ER unless your pneumonia is very serious; i.e., you let it go one for days and days and days before seeking treatment.

Again, I'm not sure where you're getting your information, but it is not correct. Have you been reading nutzy emails?

That's not true either. My mom's doctor will prescribe a medication, tell her to come back right away if she doesn't feel better in three or four days, and schedule a 30-day follow-up. He also explains to her that if, for some reason, the medication doesn't agree with her that she should call his office.

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Hmmm... does anyone have the text of the exact regulation? Or a detailed fact-explanation rather than editorial explanations. If I got it wrong I'll always acknowledge I was mistaken.

What we are observing in real terms is increasing hostility and denial to "poor" people in terms of healthcare in real terms around here. When we discuss it with doctors we know, inevitably they will bitterly complain about the federal government and regulations that they want to avoid any interaction with anyway possible. The easiest way to do so is to refuse the patients upfront from the start.

joko104 said:

That, for the most part, isn't available around here.

Why is nurses traveling to your houses cheaper than to examine someone in the hospital - where there also are doctors and equipment to deal with and best detect complications?

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To my knowledge, it's available everywhere. Are you sure? As for the cost? It cost $175/visit for my mom's home healthcare. That's certainly cheaper than a visit to the ER. And certainly cheaper than keeping someone in the hospital, wouldn't you say?