Friday

Obama Care and Health Policy: CH-CH-CH-CH-CHANGING!


Lately there are so many changes on the healthcare front that our heads are spinning! From having a laptop computer between you and your practitioner --- to finding out that the policies have changed dramatically since the last time you visited your hospital or clinic. How to keep track of the changes? I'm not sure you can. The most important thing you can do is to try to stay aware of current trends.

Like this one which poses hope for better hospital care the First Time Around:
Click HERE for the article.

There is nothing perfect about Obama Care and its coverage. Up until now I have been looking at it primarily from a recipient's point of view. However, I've been doing some work for a Medicare-based home health agency here in Yavapai County and the ObamaCare changes have been affecting policies and procedures on a corporate level already. Some of those changes are positive ones. There are patients receiving care who really should have been discharged long ago. Taxpayer dollars pay dearly for the daily care they receive from a multi-level, comprehensive care team. The new rules are forcing their discharges at an appropriate time -- not too early, no. And no longer too late.

I don't know how this will pan out over time, but thus far from the systemic level, there will be significant taxpayer relief coming down the pike. A drop in the bucket compared to our national defense plan and national debt, perhaps, but nonetheless an improvement for the national budget. It may be a big player in the survival of Social Security and Medicare.

The most important thing -- as I see it - is that the patients who are being discharged from hospitals, hospices and home care programs are to be treated with compassion and receive the very best information they can to help themselves once they are on their own again.

Make the best use of the discharge planner at the hospital, the social worker in the hospice or home care agency or hire yourself a geriatric care manager to get an effective long term plan in place!

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