Hospitals, Medicaid Patients, and Long-Term Care

Hospitals care for hundreds of Medicaid patients per year others won’t take, By Michael J. Berens, May 11, 2010, Seattle Times: “There are no bars on her window or locks on the door, yet Jeri Ringseth considers herself a prisoner. On Nov. 4, she was admitted to St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma with a diabetic blood-sugar imbalance, a life-threatening condition that over the years has caused both her legs to be amputated. She was well enough within days for release to a nursing home. Instead, she had to wait, and as of Tuesday – after 189 days at St. Joseph – she still waits. ‘Nobody wants me anymore,’ she says. Ringseth, 41, is a low-income patient who suffers from chronic disabilities. She’s too sick to care for herself and not well-off enough to pay for a private nursing home or other facility. She’s one of hundreds of Medicaid patients in Washington state each year who – despite no longer needing hospitalization – have occupied hospital rooms for a month or longer while trying to find a nursing home or other facility to take them in. A Seattle Times investigation has found at least 2,025 such cases from 2000 to 2008. Overall price tag: $461 million. Although written off as charity care, those costs are passed on to those who do pay for their care, according to the Washington State Hospital Association…”