List of alternative forms of care for the assessment panels
Community hospital or general practitioner bed Nursing home—immediate access for short term care Nursing home (elderly mentally infirm)—immediate access for short term care Respite care home—immediate access for short term care Residential home—immediate access for short term care Hospice Urgent referral for outpatient treatment or investigation—same day (including x ray) Urgent referral for outpatient treatment or investigation—next day (including x ray) Urgent home visit by consultant—within 48 hours Intensive home support—provided within 2 hours Intensive home support—provided within 12 hours Less intensive home support—provided within 12 hours Continuous minor social support in the home—provided within 2 hours Other—to be specified
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Consumer advocates call for hospitals to implement fair and transparent billing practices on the heels of a new Harvard report documenting medically-related bankruptcies
Boston, MA, February 2, 2005. Community Catalyst welcomes the release of “Illness And Injury As Contributors to Bankruptcy.” The report, by researchers from Harvard Law School and Harvard Medical School and published in Health Affairs, finds that almost half of all personal bankruptcies stem from medically related causes. This report confirms, in detail, what advocates have known since first monitoring hospital charity care practices. “Middle class families can see the American Dream vanish with one trip to the hospital, especially if they are uninsured or underinsured,” said Betsy Stoll, Development and Policy Director of Community Catalyst, a national health consumer advocacy group working to secure quality affordable health access for everybody. “Hospitals need to have charity care policies that help people, not force them to mortgage their homes to pay their bills. Unfortunately, this may be the tip of the bankruptcy iceberg. More and more of the cost of health care is being shifted to individuals, and at the same time we’re witnessing efforts to weaken Medicaid. This means increased pressure on hospitals and the insured and uninsured alike.” Recent lawsuits, Congressional hearings, and investigative reports have detailed many of the harsh billing and collection practices used by hospitals that leave families with no alternative but bankruptcy. In 2003, Community Catalyst released “Not There When You Need It: The Search for Free Hospital Care”, and it continues to help local consumer groups press hospitals to change their collection practices and adopt fair billing principles. “We invite hospitals to join with us in pressing for policies that protect families from financial catastrophe, and in preserving a strong health care safety net. We have a common interest in making sure that everyone has the coverage they need,” said Stoll. “There are no winners in a medical bankruptcy.” NASHVILLE — Some of the debtors sitting forlornly in this city’s old stone bankruptcy court have lost a job or gotten divorced. Others have been summoned to face their creditors because they spent mindlessly beyond their means. But all too often these days, they are there merely because they, or their children, got sick.
Wes and Katie Covington, from Smyrna, Tenn., were already in debt from a round of fertility treatments when complications with her pregnancy and surgery on his knee left them with unmanageable bills. For Christine L. Phillips of Nashville, it was a $10,000 trip to the emergency room after a car wreck, on the heels of costly operations to remove a cyst and repair a damaged nerve. |
AuthorRobert Brooks Builder Developer Entrepreneur Seeker Archives
May 2018
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