The ignorance of Congress and the waste of your stolen tax dollars. One Simple Step to Cut Medicare Spending Medicare could cut spending significantly by simply changing its policy of not reimbursing ambulatory surgical centers for many procedures performed there. Ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) are outpatient facilities that have the same equipment, surgeons, and staff as hospital operating and recovery rooms. But they are far less expensive than hospitals because they are not subject to the same administrative procedures that burden hospitals, notes Brittany La Couture, a healthcare policy analyst with the American Action Forum. Treatment at an ASC is on average 75 percent less expensive than hospitalization. Therefore private insurers encourage patients to use ASCs for many procedures rather than a hospital. But Medicare has an “inpatient-only” list of 1,700 procedures that must be performed in a hospital in order to receive Medicare reimbursement, even though a large portion of them are regularly and safely performed in ASCs and should not be excluded, La Couture asserts. She adds that ASCs have nearly identical outcomes when compared to hospitals, and their patients are at a slightly lower risk of acquiring an infection than they would be in a hospital. Furthermore, for the procedures that Medicare does permit at an ASC, it pays ASCs an average of just 56 percent of what the program would pay a hospital for the same procedure. So encouraging the use of ASCs would also save taxpayers money at a time when it is becoming increasingly necessary to rein in Medicare spending. The federal government spent $586 billion on Medicare last year, accounting for 14 percent of the federal budget, and hospital inpatient services ate up one-quarter of all Medicare spending, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Spending is projected to increase to $597 billion this year, and to top $1 trillion by 2022. As the senior population continues to rapidly expand with the aging of the baby boomers and the demand for hospital services generally increases due to the Affordable Care Act, ASCs will become increasingly appealing as an inexpensive and efficient conduit to provide care and meet increasing demand, La Couture concludes. The existing body of evidence shows clearly that for many indications, ASCs are a safe alternative to hospitalization.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 15:14:39 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015