We spend a lot of money on hospital re-admissions...

The Dartmouth Atlas study, released today, reveals an expensive lack of progress on reducing hospital re-admission rates:


The readmission rate to a hospital is increasingly seen as a marker of a local health care system’s 
ability to coordinate care for patients across care settings, and readmissions are often a sign of 
inadequate discharge planning and the lack of effective community-based care. CMS has 
estimated the cost of avoidable readmissions at more than $17 billion a year. In hopes of 
decreasing these costs, Medicare plans to reduce payments for readmissions, exposing hospitals 
to considerable financial risks. In fiscal year 2013, hospitals face a penalty equal to 1 percent of 
their total Medicare billings if an excessive number of patients are readmitted. The penalty rises to 
2 percent in 2014 and 3 percent in 2015.


17 billion dollars is a lot of money. There's no one single place or thing we could address that can, with the snap of a finger, fix our health care cost/spending issues. According to the Office of the Actuary, which is part of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, we spent a total of 2.5 Trillion in 2007 on health care in the United States.

Keep in mind, that 17 Billion dollars is just .0068 of 2.5 trillion...

We have a long, long way to go...


Read the Press Release here...

See the full report here...


Source:

http://www.dartmouthatlas.org/downloads/press/Post_Acute_Care_Release_092811.pdf

http://www.dartmouthatlas.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States#Health_care_spending