Health Care Bills Would Penalize Hospitals for Medicare Readmissions

 This is important reading for elders and their families and loved ones. From the start, we have been hearing that one way the advocates of Obama Health Care would defray part of the costs is to trim back Medicare services. Here is another article addressing this critical issue.   ~~~  S. Lane

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=56046

Health Care Bill's Plan to Cut Medicare Payments to Hospitals that Readmit Ill Seniors Could Have 'Serious Consequences,' Says Hospital Association
Monday, October 26, 2009
By Matt Cover, Staff Writer

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., successfully steered his health care reform bill through the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2009. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

(CNSNews.com) – Slashing Medicare payments to hospitals that readmit ailing senior citizens--a component of the health care reform bill under consideration in Congress--could have serious consequences for the hospitals, including raising costs on hospitals an estimated $19 billion over 10 years, according to the American Hospital Association.

A plan to reduce preventable hospital readmissions is included in all of the health care bills before Congress and would impose a fee on hospitals that readmit patients for certain conditions, such as pneumonia and heart failure.

The details on how the readmissions policy would work, however, are largely left up to the Health and Human Services Department (HHS), a fact that concerns the nation's hospitals. The penalties would only apply to hospitals where the readmission rates were well above the national average.