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A headline for the ages

CANCELLED SURGERIES COSTING HOSPITALS MILLIONS

From Anesthesiology News:
Between patient no-shows and cancellations on the day of surgery, hospitals are losing millions in revenue each year, researchers have found.......

Astonishing isn't it! I might have even been appalled if I weren't so disgusted.

Nowhere in the article is there any discussion of the possible harm to patients due to missed surgeries. Nowhere is there any discussion of why patients may have cancelled, e.g. cost to the patient in terms of missed work and/or lost wages.

Based on this article it would appear the only ones suffering here and risking harm are the health care providers.

For me, this article simply further highlight how inadequate our health care system is, and how distorted our value system has become in this country, when lost "opportunity costs" (profit) is what's on the mind of health care providers the most.

But then again, a fee-for-service, for-profit health care system was never meant to promote concern for the patient!
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Comments

Rebecca said…
Some of those cancellations could be due to cattle call surgeries being held up and someone being bumped.

My mom is on oxygen 24/7. While in the hospital they were going to wheel here down for surgery and the nurse didn't know if she could leave with a heart monior on. Since she's had heart attacks, quadruple bi-pass surgery, instinct tells me yes. But the nurse waited and called several doctors, (none of which were performing the surgery) and held up surgery for over 25 minutes, all the while my mom was in the hall on a gurney with no oxygen with some kid volunteering in transportation for his school credit.

The nurse held up surgery, because she was concerned about the cost of the heart monitor and being reprimanded if the heart monitor didn't return. She WAS reprimanded by the surgeon for leaving my mother without oxygen prior to surgery and they had to put her on oxygen and wait for her level to rise before performing surgery, which means somebody most likley got bumped that day.
3:14 AM
Marc said…
I think the surgeries they were referring to here were mostly outpatient surgeries, but the article wasn't specific. It did, however, indicate some of the cancellations were initiated by the hospitals, so........

Some of the cancellations could also have been a result of the insurance company not approving the surgery at the last minute. There just wasn't any mention of that, nor were any particular reasons mentioned.

The article was just about how much money the health care providers were losing.
4:31 AM
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