Monday, December 3, 2012
Overtreatment: Making Money from Unnecessary Treatment
The hospital chain, Health Management Associates (70 hospitals in 15 states) is accused of pressuring doctors at some of its hospitals to admit patients regardless of medical need just to increase revenues, the CBS program 60 Minutes reported Sunday.
Doctors at several HMA hospitals told 60 Minutes that administrators had set quotas for admissions through their emergency rooms. HMA disclosed in previous SEC filings that federal authorities have been investigating certain aspects of the company, including "the medical necessity of emergency room tests and patient admissions."
While I do not regularly track these sorts of developments on this blog, new federal and state investigations into financially-motivated medical over-treatment are announced daily.
Yes! I watched this Program.
ReplyDeleteObviously, since elderly patients are the greatest source of "product" for the "for-profit industry of health care" it is not surprising that for-profit hospitals will manage admissions to maximize profits.
At the same time this is happening, however, there is also public policy developed by HMS and the private insurers to NOT reimburse hospitals who are providing bad-practice care (especially to the elderly) -- i.e. overtreatments that are not beneficial to the patient and that contribute to the high costs of dying in Acute Care Hospital ICUs and CCUs.
Since the "growing" dying elderly population contribute to the "gtowing" costs of dying, it would seem that a Mandate from HHS to physicians in the OUTPATIENt and INPATIENT setting and hospitals to SEEK iformed consent for either palliative care or curative care would go a long way in solving the problem of "overtreatments."
Such informed consent would go a long way in promoting "self-rationing" of treatments by educated and informed elderly patients and/or their legal surrogates.
But, of course, such a mandate for informed consent from the elderly for either curative OR palliative care would negatively impact profits in the medical specialties. .