H. L. Mencken
As we get closer to healthcare reform one question on many a law-maker's mind right now is how are we going to pay for all of this expanded access to healthcare?
Here’s an idea. Look for the medical conditions that are responsible for the largest numbers of readmissions and withhold payment for all those that are unnecessary. That will save money.
Sounds good.
How do we decide which ones are unnecessary?
Simple math.
This plan is not as far-fetched as it sounds. It is precisely a component of the plan put forth by the Senate Finance Committee last month.
Anyone who has spent some time around patients knows that they can come back to the hospital for any number of reasons. Some might have failures in their treatment, like patients who get an infection after a surgery – clearly something we need to address. Some might have been admitted by a physician whose discretion errs on the side of what we might say is overutilization – also something we want to address. But what about the patient with a chronic diseases who has a worsening of his or her condition and need to come back? What about patient who lives in a community where there is simply no place else to go? What about the patient who gets admitted to a nursing home on Thursday, and needs to come back on Sunday because there is no physician on-site when the patient’s condition changes. And what about those patients who don’t want to, or can’t afford to take their pills?
A better and easier plan might be to start with conditions we know might have been complications – infections or deep venous thrombosis, for example. If a patient is admitted to any hospital with one of these conditions, we could look back over a number of days - say seven - and see if they had been admitted to a hospital for an agreed upon list of elective procedures. You can deduct a portion of the payment you would ordinarily give the first hospital. This puts the incentives in the right place and begins addressing things few would argue represent high quality care.
As we begin revising the healthcare payment system, we have an opportunity to tie payments more closely to quality, or at least to line up the incentives correctly. Let’s hope we don’t instead do more harm than good by imposing policies that are simple, clear and wrong.
