Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom
Health Freedom Minute February 1, 2013
Unwanted Patients Medicare is cutting payments to hospitals if too many patients are readmitted within 30 days. Hospitals will lose millions of dollars as Medicare seeks to limit “avoidable” readmissions. But who defines the term “avoidable”? The doctor or the bureaucrat in D.C.? One doctor predicts hospitals will simply begin refusing to readmit patients regardless of the patientʼs condition. Medicare already limits payments according to 467 diagnosis-related groups. Each diagnosis gets a single Medicare payment regardless of the actual cost of care. Thus, Medicare limits payment on the front end, and is now cutting it on the back end. Rationing by any other name is still rationing. “Return Patients Vex Hospitals,” Laura Landro, The Wall Street Journal, January 23, 2013.
Presented daily by Twila Brase, President, Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom. The Health Freedom Minute is now heard in 37 states: Mornings M-Th at AM1280 (The Patriot) in MN and 91.5 AM WHKC (FreedomFM) in OH, afternoons on American Family Radio, and daily on the Bott Radio Network.
CCHF ● 161 St. Anthony Ave. ● Suite 923 ● St. Paul, MN 55103 ● 651-646-8935 ● www.cchfreedom.org CCHF supports patient and doctor freedom, medical innovation, and the right of citizens to a confidential patient-doctor relationship.
