Keeping You Up to Date

Keeping You UP to DATE:

In the news: Healthcare Reform and the new Medicare reimbursements conditions have affected everyone in healthcare. Often people have asked why the changes? The article written by Bob Herman  April 14, 2014 for Becker's is based on the findings from a recent statistical brief showing the staggering effects of the costs of the ten top Medicare readmission conditions. Readmissions added $41.3 billion in hospital costs in 2011, and 58 percent of those costs stemmed from Medicare patients. Those findings come from an Association for Healthcare Research and Quality statistical brief, released this month. All told, Medicare patients represented 56 percent of all readmissions in 2011. Here are the costs of the 10 most common Medicare readmissions, according to the AHRQ brief. 1. Congestive heart failure - $1.75 billion (134,500 total readmissions) 2. Septicemia (except in labor) - $1.41 billion (92,900 total readmissions) 3. Pneumonia (except caused by tuberculosis or STDs) - $1.15 billion (88,800 total readmissions) 4. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and bronchiectasis - $924 million (77,900 total readmissions) 5. Cardiac dysrhythmias - $835 million (69,400 total readmissions) 6. Complication of device, implant or graft - $742 million (47,200 total readmissions) 7. Heart attack - $693 million (51,300 total readmissions) 8. Acute and unspecified renal failure - $683 million (53,500 total readmissions) 9. Urinary tract infections - $621 million (56,900 total readmissions) 10. Acute cerebrovascular disease - $568 million (45,800 total readmissions)