Using street social workers to prevent hospital readmissions

[MillCreek]

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/04/08/473379238/baltimore-sees-hospitals-as-key-to-breaking-a-cycle-of-violence?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=science

Interesting if this works.  The hospitals are doing this out of their financial self-interest: you are financially penalized by the Affordable Care Act if your patients are readmitted after a certain period of time.  So if you patch up a gangbanger, he is released, and is then shot again and readmitted, the hospital is deemed to have done a poor job of care and is penalized for this.

[Hawkmoon]

I'm sorry. I'm not getting it. If someone goes in for gall bladder surgery and the hospital leaves a sponge in the patient and he/she has to be readmitted to fix the hospital's screw-up, yes the hospital should be penalized. But if the hospital patches up a gang banger who got shot, and he then is released and gets himself shot again -- that's not the hospital's fault and it's not even the same injury (despite "gun shot wound" having the same code). Why should the hospital's be penalized because gang bangers persist in being gang bangers?

Wouldn't it be cheaper to teach gang bangers to shoot better? That right there should reduce readmissions to almost zero.

  [Exit, stage left]

[Perd Hapley]

You've got to admit, Hawkmoon, that it makes as much sense as every other aspect of POST EDITED BECAUSE OF NICKNAMING

[BlueStarLizzard]

I'm sorry. I'm not getting it. If someone goes in for gall bladder surgery and the hospital leaves a sponge in the patient and he/she has to be readmitted to fix the hospital's screw-up, yes the hospital should be penalized. But if the hospital patches up a gang banger who got shot, and he then is released and gets himself shot again -- that's not the hospital's fault and it's not even the same injury (despite "gun shot wound" having the same code). Why should the hospital's be penalized because gang bangers persist in being gang bangers?

Wouldn't it be cheaper to teach gang bangers to shoot better? That right there should reduce readmissions to almost zero.

  [Exit, stage left]

but, but, but... The expert care from loving nurses and wise doctors is supposed to show them the error of their criminal ways and they should have sweetness and light pouring from their ahole upon leaving the wonders of the hospital, preventing all further injury forever!!!1!!! If they don't have sweetness and lightness and rainbows coming out every orifice, the hospital has clearly failed!!

[lee n. field]

rainbows coming out every orifice

mental image...

[BlueStarLizzard]

mental image...

I like to delver the goods. 

[just Warren]

I like to delver the goods. 

verb
verb: delve; 3rd person present: delves; past tense: delved; past participle: delved; gerund or present participle: delving

    reach inside a receptacle and search for something.
    "she delved in her pocket"

Delver doesn't appear but based on the other forms of "delve" it would seem you like to place the goods in deep in some sort of tunnel like area.

[BlueStarLizzard]

Delver doesn't appear but based on the other forms of "delve" it would seem you like to place the goods in deep in some sort of tunnel like area.

Your brains. Where it will stay forever...


MUWAHAHAHAHAHAA

[Perd Hapley]

but, but, but... The expert care from loving nurses and wise doctors is supposed to show them the error of their criminal ways

The way the program is actually supposed to work is that ex-con "violence interrupters" work with them. But in true POST EDITED BECAUSE OF NICKNAMING fashion, the idea is bring down the high cost of health care by imposing an additional cost on hospitals.

The idea is to get six or seven hospitals on board, with hopes that at some point the hospitals will pay for it — to the tune of roughly $100,000 annually per institution. That would pay for two violence interrupters per hospital, plus someone to oversee the whole program.

[MillCreek]

^^^And if the cost of the 'violence interruptors' is outweighed by lesser readmission penalties on the hospital, it is a financial win for the hospital.  This is why the hospitals are doing this on their own dime.

This is the same reason hospitals are sending home health nurses out to see the little old lady with CHF who was just discharged; to manage her care at home to prevent her from having to come back to the hospital.  If she comes back within 30 days of discharge, the hospital gets a financial penalty.  So, cheaper to send that nurse out to keep the little old lady out of the hospital.

[Perd Hapley]

You're still talking about an additional cost being imposed by government fines, so how is it making healthcare more affordable?

[Hawkmoon]

You're still talking about an additional cost being imposed by government fines, so how is it making healthcare more affordable?

Brought to you by the same folks who brought us Common Core.

It's the New Math, stupid. Get with the program. 2+2 doesn't equal 4 any more -- now 2+2 equals red, or peaches, or ... something. Anything but 4.

[BlueStarLizzard]

You're still talking about an additional cost being imposed by government fines, so how is it making healthcare more affordable?

It's not, but the social workers and traveling nurses are cheaper than the fines.

[Perd Hapley]

It's not, but the social workers and traveling nurses are cheaper than the fines.

I know. I'm just pointing out that this appears to be an additional expense brought on by the Affordable Care Act. Hospitals, presumably, had lower expenses before this particular policy of the Act went into effect. If not, it seems they would have taken these measures already.

[RoadKingLarry]

I wonder if this is still some of the MBA wizardry I see at work, If I repair a circuit for a customer and the same circuit has another problem within a set period of time it counts against me as a repeat. Doesn't matter if the first failure was the result of crackheads cutting down the fiber-optic run to steal the copper and the 2nd failure was because a F2 tornado came through and relocated 2 miles of transmission line to the next county over. If it was less than 10 days between failures I get a quality ding.

 

[dogmush]

I wonder if this is still some of the MBA wizardry I see at work, If I repair a circuit for a customer and the same circuit has another problem within a set period of time it counts against me as a repeat. Doesn't matter if the first failure was the result of crackheads cutting down the fiber-optic run to steal the copper and the 2nd failure was because a F2 tornado came through and relocated 2 miles of transmission line to the next county over. If it was less than 10 days between failures I get a quality ding.

 

Yes, it is.  My wife work recently in a vascular ICU in Tampa.  They could do a heart transplant on a medicaid patient, discharge that patient, and have them come back in to the ER with a heroin overdose 25 days later, and the hospital got fined.

[Perd Hapley]

You've got to admit, Hawkmoon, that it makes as much sense as every other aspect of POST EDITED BECAUSE OF NICKNAMING

 

Is it still OK to call it Obamacare?

[Scout26]

 

Is it still OK to call it Obamacare?

Yes.

Back to the OP:


Would it not be cheaper just to hide the bodies?

[makattak]

Brought to you by the same folks who brought us Common Core.

It's the New Math, stupid. Get with the program. 2+2 doesn't equal 4 any more -- now 2+2 equals red, or peaches, or ... something. Anything but 4.

No, 2 + 2 is now:

││ + ││ = ││││

[Boomhauer]

Would it not be cheaper just to hide the bodies?

A LOT cheaper in fact, considering dead gangbangers can't continue their lifelong criminal career, so it's not just the fines that would be avoided. It's a lifetime of medical care, just for starters...

[Boomhauer]

You're still talking about an additional cost being imposed by government fines, so how is it making healthcare more affordable?

Hush now this was one of those things that was found out after we passed it to find out what was in it.