Healthcare Update — 04-08-2013

Columbus, OH paper compares hospital wait times from 15 different hospitals throughout central Ohio. Metrics include minutes until diagnostic evaluation, minutes until pain medication, minutes until admission decision, and minutes from admission to room placement. I just wonder how accurate the metrics are. It isn’t like self-reported data like this can’t be manipulated. Evanston Northwestern Hospital in Chicago suburbs also making news because of its wait times – nearly twice the national average. The problem with providing patients with insurance: When the insurer cuts payments, what happens if providers won’t take your insurance? Government cuts payments to providers so that it costs more for cancer clinics to provide chemotherapy to some Medicare patients than the government reimburses. To stay afloat, some cancer clinics have now begun turning away Medicare patients needing cancer infusions. Now patients go to hospitals where the charges for cancer treatment are higher and the waits for treatment will likely be longer. But we’re going to be insured! And we can keep our doctors, too! Patients gone wild. Two brothers in Lebanon “attack” an emergency department, smashing windows and insulting the doctors and nurses on duty. In other words … a normal day in a typical American emergency department. And their Press Ganey scores probably stink for that day, too. What a great story. Six year old Long Island kid treated in emergency department raises $275 ...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: Tags: Healthcare Update Source Type: blogs