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June 5th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda TUESDAY, June 5 (HealthDay News) — Federal government pressure
has led to an increasing number of Medicare patients being held for
observation instead of being admitted to hospitals, a new study
suggests.
Although this push to get hospitals to be careful about admitting
seniors as inpatients may reduce costs to Medicare, it can lead to higher
out-of-pocket costs for the patients, according to the researchers from
Brown University in Providence, R.I.
“The dual trends of increasing hospital observation services and
declining inpatient admissions suggest that hospitals and physicians may
be substituting observation services for inpatient admissions — perhaps
to avoid unfavorable Medicare audits targeting hospital admissions,” the
study’s first author, Zhanlian Feng, assistant professor of health
services, policy and practice at Brown, said in a university news
release.
The researchers analyzed the records of 29 million Medicare
beneficiaries aged 65 and older in 2007, 2008 and 2009, and found that the
proportion of those being held for observation increased 34 percent over
those three years.
Observation stays rose from less than 815,000 (2.3 per 1,000
beneficiaries) in 2007 to more than 1 million (2.9 per 1,000
beneficiaries) in 2009. Inpatient admissions fell from 23.9 per 1,000 in
2007 to 22.5 per 1,000 in 2009, the investigators noted.
And, the number of patients held for observation longer than 72 hours
increased from less than 24,000 in 2007 to nearly 45,000 in 2009,
according to the study published in the June issue of the journal
Health Affairs.
Although a patient’s experience of being held for observation,
especially for days, may seem exactly the same as being admitted to the
hospital, the difference is apparent when it comes time to pay the bill,
the researchers noted.
Patients held for observation are classified as outpatients and, under
Medicare rules, outpatients may face higher co-payments for in-hospital
services and won’t be covered for subsequent care in skilled nursing
facilities.
The practice has angered patient advocacy groups, one of which launched
a class-action lawsuit against the federal government last year.
More information
The AARP has more about Medicare.
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