By Jordan Rau
Kaiser Health News, September 12, 2011

The Veterans Health Administration, the largest integrated health care system in the country, has long employed many of the approaches Medicare is pushing on all hospitals to cut unnecessary readmissions. But new data show VA hospital patients are just as likely to end up back in a hospital bed as are patients at private hospitals.

Studies have found the VA does better than most hospitals in following appropriate guidelines for the best care to give patients.

The new statistics underscore how hard it may be for hospitals to stop patients from rebounding back through their doors, a major goal of Medicare as it seeks to curtail the nation’s ballooning health costs.

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2011/September/12/VA-readmissions.aspx

Comment: 

By Don McCanne, MD

Obviously, when a patient is discharged from a hospital, every effort should be made to avoid slip-ups that might result in an unnecessary readmission soon after discharge. Yet many patients have serious, unstable conditions that can require readmissions that are unavoidable.

Differentiating avoidable from unavoidable readmissions can be very difficult. This report on VA hospital readmissions reveals that it may be nearly impossible, or that the numbers may be negligible. The VA already has in place guidelines and systems that should prevent unnecessary readmissions, yet their readmission rates are the same as private hospitals.

This brings into question the current efforts by Medicare to save costs by penalizing hospitals for readmitting patients. This policy could be particularly harmful if it resulted in the refusal to readmit patients who really needed to be back in (e.g., manage them in the emergency room and then send them back home).

Although quality improvement should be a continuing effort, this is simply another example of the totally inadequate cost containment measures of the Affordable Care Act – measures that only pretend that we are going to control costs. We need a massive overhaul of the financing system if we ever expect to bring costs under control – yes, a single payer national health program.

VA Experience Shows Patient ‘Rebound’ Hard To Counter

By Jordan Rau
Kaiser Health News, September 12, 2011

The Veterans Health Administration, the largest integrated health care system in the country, has long employed many of the approaches Medicare is pushing on all hospitals to cut unnecessary readmissions. But new data show VA hospital patients are just as likely to end up back in a hospital bed as are patients at private hospitals.

Studies have found the VA does better than most hospitals in following appropriate guidelines for the best care to give patients.

The new statistics underscore how hard it may be for hospitals to stop patients from rebounding back through their doors, a major goal of Medicare as it seeks to curtail the nation’s ballooning health costs.

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2011/September/12/VA-readmissions.aspx

Obviously, when a patient is discharged from a hospital, every effort should be made to avoid slip-ups that might result in an unnecessary readmission soon after discharge. Yet many patients have serious, unstable conditions that can require readmissions that are unavoidable.

Differentiating avoidable from unavoidable readmissions can be very difficult. This report on VA hospital readmissions reveals that it may be nearly impossible, or that the numbers may be negligible. The VA already has in place guidelines and systems that should prevent unnecessary readmissions, yet their readmission rates are the same as private hospitals.

This brings into question the current efforts by Medicare to save costs by penalizing hospitals for readmitting patients. This policy could be particularly harmful if it resulted in the refusal to readmit patients who really needed to be back in (e.g., manage them in the emergency room and then send them back home).

Although quality improvement should be a continuing effort, this is simply another example of the totally inadequate cost containment measures of the Affordable Care Act – measures that only pretend that we are going to control costs. We need a massive overhaul of the financing system if we ever expect to bring costs under control – yes, a single payer national health program.