by Buster 5 Replies latest jw friends
For some reason there are a inordinately large number of dubbies in the Tacoma WA area.
The CEO of one of the area's largest hospitals is looking for a method to track bloodless surgeries. He wants to know how much his hospital does. He wants to compare costs and complications with the procedures' with-blood counterparts.
It is an honest effort to serve a significant part of their population.
Perhaps they want to use it to expand market share.
Sounds like a normal marketing technique for a hospital. I expect he'll find that the bloodless procedures are more costly, at least for the patient. More OR time for one thing.
If it is more costly to use the bloodless techniques, who picks up the tab? The patient makes up the difference? or does it get passed on to the insurance company? (if they have insurance) If it get's passed on to the insurance company doesn't that mean 'we' (non jw's) actually end up paying anyway? carla
A lot depends upon the coverage. If the insurer refuses to pay for extra costs that are deemed not medically necessary, then it's the patient's responsibility. If the insurer does pay for it, then the costs would be passed onto us indirectly by means of increased premiums. If the pt has medicaid/medicare, then it would be passed onto us by increased taxes. If the hospital is nonprofit and agrees to write off the costs, then again it comes back to us via taxes.
I'd be curious to see if this CEO publishes his findings so we can analyze who covers most of the costs.
The national standards do not provide a method for capturing bloodless versions of surgical procedures. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to develop authoritative conclusions from historical data.
The hospital may only be able to record such procedures going forward.
But once the data is collected at the Center for Health Statistics, it is publicly available, including costs and lengths of stay, medications, supplies etc.
Individual hospitals can get this data by looking for accounts registered with JW religion codes along with surgical codes, then review each chart and the claim.
