Medicare Panel Faults Payment Fix as Too Weak - Essay Example

"Medicare Panel Faults Payment Fix as Too Weak" is a perfect example of a paper on the health system. The article “Medicare Panel Faults Payment Fix as Too Weak” published in the Wall Street Journal sheds light on the ill practices of long-term hospitals. Long-term hospitals make patients stay beyond need so that that they can benefit from higher payments, as according to the current structure such hospitals get low payments for shorter periods, however, these periods escalate to much higher sums of the number of stay by patients exceeds a certain threshold. According to data released, most hospitals make patients stay until the day the payment structure is to go up and discharge the patient right then in a bid to increase their overall fees earned (Weaver, Christopher, Mathews, and McGinty).

Such a policy is having a very bad impact on the patients as well as the state, as patients have to stay at hospitals for longer than required, whereas the state has to pay out extra to patients in lieu of health benefits. The article mentions that MedPAC is trying to fix this issue with its new proposed payment structures that will come online later this month, which seek to minimize the cases of abuse carried out by long-term hospitals in a bid to boost up their revenues. Though the new rules are likely to limit the abusive practices of long term hospitals by ensuring higher payments are only made to patients who have been on ventilators for at least 4 days, or in the ICU of a general hospital for at least three days, there is still a very high possibility that these conditions may be easily achieved by these hospitals. Proper policy making needs to be done in this area to save taxpayers’ money, protect patients from misery, and cut off the root of such evil practices.

 

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