Dr. Mihae Grace Joo, MD

My experience was to be released prior to being medical stable. Medicare patients are being discharged with hospitalists avoiding blood tests to check infection comparison from the prior day, CT/MRI/X-rays to be sure they are medically stable and to avoid having documentation on record. Most patients do not know to ask for these tests if they are being told they are not acutely ill anymore. Please be knowledgable what labs and tests you are having on a daily basis. The most critical day is often when you are told you are well enough to go home or rehab. Medicare pays hospitals what they should be paid and the hospital has to accept it. In turn, hospitalists are told to discharge as fast as possible to get a private insured patient in the Medicare bed where they can receive 3x as much as a Medicare patient for the same ailment. Medicare is often blamed for this when it is Medicare who allows you to appeal if you are being discharged too soon, and they will pay in full… your days in the hospital as they look into your case. If there have been omission of labs and tests needed to make a valid safe discharge the hospital will be caught (unless they alter reports). You are given this form in the hospital stating your rights as a Medicare patient. The fact this form had to be created should tell you something. The hospitals are about profit which is why we have hospitalists. We can no longer have our specialists treat us when it is most critical (except at a few hospitals that allow both options) but a stranger to come into the picture and in some cases cause lethal outcomes due to not knowing the patients case. For those who think this problem is Medicare, please research. I have had relationships (work and personal) with a number of politicians and those I have had in my life have not worried about helping anyone other than the patient; not hospitals. However, they may be a donar or have significant ties to a hospital you have been wronged at so please notify your politicians (state and federal) as to what your experience was. It will go much farther than notifying the hospital or filling out their assessment on your care they often mail you. It will go to the top and if patients realize what is going on, well not great hospitalists they have operating their system.