Good news everyone, a new program is being launched to lower Medicare costs by preventing repeat visits, duplicate tests, and duplicate procedures.
Something which should have been done while the Republicans, who are supposedly adamant about saving money, controlled all three branches of government for half a decade.
(Reuters) - The U.S. agency that runs government health insurance is launching a program that would bundle insurance payments for multiple procedures in the hope of improving patient care while also saving money. [...]
The program is meant to encourage hospitals, doctors and other specialists to coordinate in treating a patient's specific condition during a single hospital stay and recovery.
"Today Medicare pays for care in the wrong way," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters on a press call.
"Payments are based on the quantity of care, and not on the quality of that care," she said. "There is little financial incentive for the kind of care coordination that can help patients from returning to the hospital."
The four models give providers flexibility on how they get paid and for which services, as well as give them financial incentives to avoid unnecessary or duplicative procedures.
Improve patient care while also saving money? Provide incentives for preventing repeat-visits?
I don't know. It sounds kind of socialist to me. Only socialists would plan to save money while also improving service. Real Americans save money by cutting services.
Expect the very serious, courageous Republicans to immediately launch a campaign to defeat and de-fund this latest encroachment of evil, cost-saving, socialized medicine.