By CHRISTINE MONTROSS
The New York Times - Opinion
Published: August 3, 2013
Here are some excerpts:
The costs of M’s repeated hospitalizations are staggering. Her ingestions and insertions incur the already high costs of hospital admission and the medical procedures and surgeries she requires. In addition, once M is hospitalized as a psychiatric patient, a staff member must stay with her at all times to make sure she doesn’t ingest utensils from her meal trays, insert tools from group craft activities into her body or drink Purell from the dispensers on the unit walls.
(cut)
In one of the ironies in a country with health care discrepancies, a single hospital admission for M — paid for by the taxpayer-financed state medical-assistance program — costs more than a year of private outpatient care would.
The entire article is here.
Thanks to Tom Fink for the story.
