Post-pandemic, even hospital care goes remote!!

[LarryG]

Such a thing was unimaginable, just a few years ago. The Mayo Clinic was among the first hospitals in the country to experiment with sending acute patients home for remote care four years ago. Now, some 250 similar programs exist throughout the country.

It's because during the pandemic, the federal agency that runs Medicare and Medicaid relaxed normal rules requiring around-the-clock, on-site nurses for hospitals requesting the exception. This allowed at-home hospital care programs to rapidly expand. Those pandemic-era waivers will remain in place until at least the end of 2024, although some experts anticipate policy changes allowing such programs to remain in place permanently.

Now, it seems at-home hospital care is fast becoming an option for acute care for many conditions, even for treatment of cancer!

The practice has been enabled by other recent trends as well – for instance the increase in traveling medical staff and the prevalence of portable Internet-enabled devices to connect with medical help remotely.

Such shifts could potentially reshape the future of hospital care, affecting many more patients.

What's been your experience?

 

[Life Hawk]

Health care has become big business, and it will continue to act like big business.

The down side is that care will respond according to earnings as opposed to more of an out come model. All this is driven by insurance companies looking for valid options to reduce loss.

I'm not saying that a remote model is wrong or inefficient per se, but I know how inefficient insurance companies became when they all went home. Try calling customer service some time.

If care is effected, even in the slightest, how many deaths could this cause?