The Cost of Saving My Life is to Forfeit the Rest of My Life!

     All Americans are delivered a daily diet of "Media Medication Commercials".  Every possible "dis-ease" is frightingly illuminated, followed by a recommended  prescription medication promising resolve.  Common to all advertisments is a perfunctory warning regarding limitations and side effects. These warning always ends with the CYA admonishment to......"Call Your Doctor".  A Serious Question is implicit.  Will "Calling Your Doctor" really resolve anything? 

     Well first, we all know that we can no more call "our doctor" than we can just dial-up Barack Obama.  At best we will have a brief conversation with a minimally trained receptionist whose only latitude is to schedule an appointment or instruct urgent patients to visit their Hospital ER.  At worst, "calling your doctor" yields only a telephony message asking for a call-back number, a call which never comes.  While this "in due time" protocol may be appropriate for sore throats, migraines and toenail fungus, it is not responsive to Advanced Seniors experiencing highly unstable symptoms. In these situations everyone know that the Senior should forget about their Doctor and go straight to the Hospital ER. 

      These seniors, having no practical options, are making these trip in stagering numbers. They, and their concerned family members, should realize that these Hospital ER encounters are "life changing", often for the worse.   As such, Advanced Senior must  consider that being "admitted" to the Hospital  may not only result in significant expense, but that their very freedom may be at risk!  

     This may sound preposterous, the incitings of a social alarmist, but seriously you Baby Boomers with 80's aged parents.....it happens every day;  here's Why & How!  It's all about the money. Under Medicare Payment Policies, Hospital's who "Re-Admit" Seniors for recurring related health issues are severly financially penalized by Medicare..  Indeed Doctors treating In-Hospital patients who have been Re-Admitted will also suffer starting soon.  Not surprisingly the consequence of this disincentive is that Doctors with support from Hospital Social Workers and Discharge Planners are literally "strong-arming" Advanced Seniors" to give up their private residences in favor of residence in a Nursing Home.  The motive for this almost standard practice is that the Nursing Home's are incentivized by Medicaid/Medicare to minimize Hospital Re-Admissions in favor of less expensive pallative responses to patient condition. Nursing Homes are paid special allowances to fund their expense in "educating patient families" that often it is best that unstable Nursing Home Patients not return to the Hospital.  Actually the Hospital/Doctor mandate is often so strong that family resistance to Nursing Home relocations threatens Civil Authority intervention. 

     The practice is becoming so frequent and the strategies so cavalier that if you don't allow the Hospital to discharge your aged parent directly to the Nursing Home, well you may have to deal with the Adult Protective Services Division of the District Attorneys Office.  This is a pure violation of civil rights, but regrettably not a violation that will likely have protestors rallying in the streets.  It will however likely reduce the Medicare Cost.  Sadly, it also dooms a whole lot of Advanced Seniors to spending their remaining days withering in the most pathetic social model ever contrived by 20th Century Politicians.