The Importance Of Avoiding Hospital Readmissions

Many of us have witnessed how a person seems to get sucked into the situation when there has been an illness, an accident or other medical procedure that has to be performed. We have seen how one hospital visit seems to be followed by another and then yet another.

If you need hospitalization, you should be concentrating on recovery as well as avoiding hospital readmission – to help cut costs as well as to improve care.

According to a congressional report by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, as many as a third of hospital readmissions can be avoided by taking better care.

It has been seen that 20% of those who are hospitalized for heart failure, are re-hospitalized within about a month, but that in many cases this can be avoided.

Medicare has to spend over 15 billion dollars on re-hospitalizations and an estimated 26 billion dollars can be saved over the period of 10 years if just this hospital return rate could be better controlled.

It isn’t just the responsibility of the hospitals, the patients should also follow instructions, take medications as prescribed, limit activities if advised, to make sure that re-hospitalizations aren’t needed as often. It is best to avoid the trauma and emotional upheaval of a hospitalization – after all it’s not just about the money!