Re:The Dark Side of Doctoring
by maxerickson on Monday May 15, 2017 @09:18PM
(#14346679)
Medicare wouldn't be paying for the assisted care: https://www.medicare.gov/what-medicare-covers/part-a/paying-...
A facility generating large numbers of fall investigations that don't lead to ongoing medical care seems like it would be pretty easy (potential) fraud to go after though.
29,000,000 / 27,000 = ~1,074 falls per death. ~At 1,000$ per fall that's ~1,000,000$ per death which seems reasonable on average.
However, medical expenses are top heavy. Some of those falls probably cost 200,000+$ because they cause long term medial issues. If a faculty is spending ~1,000+$ on an a median fall their average is going to be much higher than that. Which is a sign they really are providing unnecessary procedures.
Elderly Americans experience about 29 million falls per year, which costs Medicare $31 billion. At about $1,000 per fall that seems quite reasonable. 27,000 older Americans die from falls each year. In an institutional setting like a nursing home, the rate of death per fall is even higher.
$700,000 for two people in assisted living for eight years is about $43,000 per year. That's not unreasonable for the cost of assisted care plus medical expenses.