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page: Search posts:  The Hospital Readmissions Reduction
Program: Cautions and Caveats  Posted Apr 03 2013 12:06am "Maybe
you should go back to the hospital!" Ask most wonks - especially
ones who never took care of a patient - about "readmissions,"
and, after quoting  this article , these health policy Urkels
will tell you that returning to a hospital is the poster-child
of all that ails U.S. medical care. Providers who can't get it
right the first time, they say, are not only giving slipshod
care, but are double dipping because their mistakes generate
even more fat fees the second time around.  "Balderdash!" says
the Disease Management Care Blog. Many Medicare inpatients are
so sick that it's a miracle that they get to go home in the
first place.  Keeping patients in the hospital can be more life-
threatening than the home environment and, when things don't get
well after a discharge, it's often more a function of social
support than medical skill. 