Hospitals Lose Lawsuit
A lawsuit that was started six years ago ended with manyAdventist hospitals in the Chicago area on the losing end of a settlement agreement.
It seems that the hospitals get a tax exemption for treating the non and under insured and the suit says they have been charging the same top rates to the non and under insured as those who are not eligible for those rates.
To be eligible a family of four would have to make less than 82,000 a year to qualify for dicounts and those who have no insurance or are at twice the poverty level I believe are not supposed to be charged at all.
The hospitals have been ordered to repay those people from 2000 to present who were charged or overcharged.
The word is also that they haven’t been treating enough of those people to justify the tax exemption that they are getting.
I don’t think many people are aware of this. I always thought no hospital could turn you down for treatment if it was a matter of life or death. It seems you don’t have to wait until you’re at death’s door, which makes sense because it could save money. The more progressed a disease becomes the more has to be done and the more expensive the costs.
What Do You Think Of This Theory?
Please forgive me for getting sidetracked with my families health issues, but it got me to wondering why the hospital my parents are going to is so underpar, and the one we go to is so much better. Also still trying to figure out about the 2 to 3 month wait for the colonoscopy, and then it came to me.
First let me say I could be way out of line here but…here are the thoughts I have;
- We live in the suburbs of Chicago, my folks live closer to the city than I do by about 15 miles.
- The population of Chicago has been growing and changing for the last 20 years.
- The city’s hospital which was known as Cook County may have superb doctors and care but it’s a pit. I know this as a fact since my daughter had to go to the ER there a few months ago. My kids witnessed drug deals being conducted there, a pigeon flying around the room and people just camping out there for somewhere to go. They said it was filthy and disgusting.
- Because my parents live closer to the city, the population of Chicago is now in their area. Most are Mexican and I bet dollars to donuts that a great number of them do not have health insurance, and a fair amount of them are probably illegal. This is not a put down since I do not carry health insurance either because of cost. Since this population change they go to this hospital and the hospital has had to make changes to take in all these people. My parents waited over 11 hours last week for my mother to get a bed, and the only reason they got one then was because my father threatened just to take my mom back home.
So the theory is that the growing number of uninsured does not only effect the cost for everyone else but also the quality of care that they get, insurance or not. My parents have good insurance through my dads pension and I gather they cannot change their doctor, and their doctor works out of this overcrowded, overworked, hospital that is now trying to take care of twice as many people as they were meant to take care of. This possible future of health care for everyone should scare the you know what out of you, because I don’t see an end in sight. As weak as my father is, I wonder if he will survive the 2 or 3 months wait for the test. Any comments on this?
Follow Up
Since I have already mentioned my daughter’s baby and my mother illness, I thought maybe some of you might be curious about an update, so here it is. My new grandson is a delight and what a good baby he is. Also some of you may already know this trick, but it was new to me. When the baby is crying and you meet whatever need he is crying for, he doesn’t always know how to stop himself from crying any further and will continue. An easy way to calm him almost immediately is to take him by the sink and run the water, when he hears the water he will calm himself instantly. Of course, sometimes the second you shut the water off he will start again, but that’s another story…
Right now, my mother says she feels better than she has in a long time and hasn’t used her walker in about two weeks. The congenital heart failure seems to be getting under control too for the moment. Good news right? Well here’s the flip side. My father is ill and has to have a test. It’s a common test however he was advised that there is a two month waiting list. I think it’s a colonoscopy. They want him in tomorrow for evaluation. Why would there be a two month wait? This is the crappy hospital I mentioned in an ealier post. Is this kind of wait common? What about those who are suspected of having cancer and can’t afford to wait two months?
Our Recent Hospital Stays
My mother was just in the hospital last weekend and told me that her room mate was so disgusted with the level of her care and the way she was treated, that she packed her clothes and walked out. A couple of doctors tried to stop her and convince her to stay but she said she couldn’t take it anymore and left. I don’t know the details but how bad must they have let her feel for her to want to leave rather than be treated for whatever illness she had.
My mother also asked those same two doctors to take a look at the bottom of her foot. A couple weeks ago she stood up and as soon as she put some weight on it she felt pain like a nail being driven through her foot and up her leg. The doctors ignored her and left without looking at the foot. Then a woman came in the room, my mother doesn’t know if she was a nurse or a doctor, but she did look at the foot and told my mother that the skin had split from the heel to the toes and that was the reason for the pain. The woman left and returned with a tube of white cream which she then massaged into the crack. The pain left immediately even with standing. She let her have the tube to take home. I guess it was to small a thing for the almighty doctors to bother with.
My mom has had to be in the hospital a lot lately and this particular one is terrible. Every time she goes in there are some issues, mean and rough nurses, doctors that don’t care, and kitchens that can’t read menu orders. The rooms are so small that with the two beds there isn’t even room for more than one or two others to stand in the room.
In contrast only several miles away, my daughter had her baby at another hospital. She had a private room, and with the exception of one rough nurses aide, had nice nurses. Her doctors were interested and caring. They messed up the menu once and immediately corrected it. I stayed overnight with her the second night she was there and they were as nice to me as if I were also a patient. The little family lounge on the floor offered free coffee and tea and they ordered a couple dozen rolls and bagels for everyone every morning. I loved the cafateria, they had everything you could want, and in the middle of the night there were a dozen nooks and rooms with soft sofa’s and chairs that I could lounge on.
Both hospitals in the suburbs, but what made one so much better? Was it because one was a maternity stay and the other elderly? I don’t know, but I do know where I’ll have my next hospital stay.
Fraud Scheme Using The Homeless
Federal authorities raided three medical centers in
Los Angelos and arrested a hospital CEO for fraud.
Authorities claim that men would walk up the down the neighborhoods where the homeless were known to be and shouting out “are you hooked up with the red, white, and blue?”. That is in reference to the Medi-Cal card that entitles you to government paid health care.
They told homeless people that they could make easy cash by coming to the hospital with them. Once there the homeless were looked at by doctors and stayed in the hospital for up to three days for conditions that did not require hospital stays. The medical centers would then bill the government for the hospitalizations and be reimbursed millions for unnecessary care.
Comments by the authorities were that it was a disgrace to use and abuse homeless people that way.
Are they nuts? First it was a crime of fraud what the medical centers did and they should certainly be punished.
Having said that, I ask again are they nuts? Let’s look at this from the homeless persons point of view.
You live on the streets, your meals come from soup kitchens or missions. You have no access to health care or even an address that would entitle you to receive government assistance. Someone comes up to you one day and takes you to a hospital where a doctor looks at you, treats your ailments, provides you with shower and bathroom facilities, a TV to watch, music to listen to, three hot square and nutritious meals plus a snack, and on top of all that they give you cash when you leave.
Now if that’s abuse, sign me up!
More Heart Attack Education Needed
A recent study suggests that many people who have heart disease still don’t know the symptoms of a heart attack. Lives can be saved if someone who is having a heart attack can get help within the first hour of having the symptoms. However it was found that most people don’t seek help until more than two hours have passed, and that means lives are being lost.
A few of the symptoms are pain in the jaw, left arm, or chest and can also include nausea. Of course most of us reason that there also can be many other reasons for these symptoms so we don’t run right to the ER, especially if we are uninsured.
The key seems to be that we all need to be aware if we are at risk for a heart attack. If you know you are at risk than these symptoms could certainly be telling you what is happening.
Doctors say that shorter hospital stays and more outpatient treatments could be a factor in not being educated enough about heart attacks, and right now no one is sure about how to better inform people about their risk. What they do know is that this is costing many lives that could otherwise be saved with early and prompt treatment.
Talk to your doctor about your risks and the health of your heart, it may save your life one day.
Hospital Compare, A New Website
Hospital Compare is a new website by the department of Health and Human Services. It lets consumers compare 26 quality of care measures in about 4,000 hospitals nation wide.
Patients rated hospital services such as how quickly they were given care and how well the communication was between them and the medical staff. In all there were ten main areas of experiences that patients had.
The purpose of the site is to help consumers make more informed decisions about where to go for care and treatment of certain ailments and illnesses. It is hoped that it will also allow hospitals to see where there strengths and weaknesses are so that they all can offer the best care and experience for their patients.
The site gives a lot of useful information, so if you are faced with a hospital stay, check the site before you are admitted. It will help to answer a lot of questions you may have and possibly relieve some anxiety about how you will be treated and cared for.
Location and Medicare
A study that’s done every two years has concluded that Medicare is paying wildly different amounts depending on where in the United States you live. Some are four times as much as others.
They looked at ill seniors and disabled people and the care and length of hospital stays in their last two years of life. What they found was that doctors seemed to tailor the care they gave with the resources they had available. For example, if a city typically had few beds open, hospital stays where short and many would be treated as outpatients or in the doctors offices. Cities that had many beds open would have sick people staying a lot longer in that hospital.
This might seem logical and maybe not even worth a study. After all, if you don’t have beds for patients they can’t stay in the hospital. That seems to make sense. My question is why are people not staying in the hospitals for the amount of time they need to and no more? Why are people who are in need of hospital care being sent home, while those who could be treated at home are in the hospital?
I’m also wondering if these stats will be ever changing. What I mean is if you have an area where beds are tied up with lengthy stays won’t doctors start shortening those stays to free up beds? In time won’t there be many open beds because of shorter stays, which will in turn encourage doctors to keep patients longer and repeat the cycle?
Sounds like a game I don’t want to play.