Maybe you have a person in your family, who is in hospital and were notified that the person will be discharged from the hospital very soon. What do you do? Chances are that you don’t know whether assisted living, home health care or a nursing home would be the best choice, nor would have expected that the person you know would get discharged so soon.
Now you might be panicking, and you might be trying to figure out exactly what it is you should be doing in this situation. Fortunately the hospital will probably give you a list of rehab clinics. Unfortunately they are not going to help you choose a clinic. You might feel like you have no time to render this decision, and you might even feel like you’re being rushed. This may push you into making a fast decision, but you really have more time than you think.
Medicare is a health insurance plan that is sanctioned by the government. This means that Congress is actually putting pressure on them. One of the best ways for them to save money is by discharging patients way too early. Hospitals are required to provide a Notice of Noncoverage. This notice indicates that a hospital MUST give you three days of warning before a patient can be discharged from the hospital.
So if the hospital has not provided you this notice, you need to make sure that they do. They might say no at first, but so long as you insist, they should relent and provide you that time. Keep in mind that you are here because someone you love is in the hospital. It is up to you to make sure that they get the care they need, and you need to make sure you have enough time to come to a real decision.
Hospitals really like to discharge Medicare patients way too early now, which means that over the last four decades average stay in a hospital from people 65 and older has dropped from–.2 days to only 6.4 days. And this trend will keep going like that.
Hospitals feel they have to do it because of the fixed fee system that medicare enforces. No matter what condition a patient is in, the hospital will be charged the same fee. Now if the patient’s stay is much shorter, then the hospital will actually make more money.
Patient care is no issue in the face of money. So when you enter the hospital there will be a paper that you sign. The paper will acknowledge your patient rights, and one such right is the right to not be discharged on a whim. You need to make a copy of the document: “An Important Message From Medicare — Your Rights While You Are A Medicare Hospital Patient.”.
The rights include the Notice of Noncoverage, and having this will stop the hospital from discharging you early. You will have the three days, and they will not be able to charge you. So long as you have not been provided the Notice of Noncoverage, you will be able to stay in the hospital.
If you wish, you can appeal the hospital’s decision simply by writing or calling the PRO in charge of filing the appeals for Medicare. Now you want to make sure that you do this rather quickly because these claims take a while to process. Know your rights, and don’t feel bad about complaining!
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