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Managing substance abuse: From the ED to follow-up care post discharge

Case Management Weekly, February 26, 2008

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Managing patients with substance abuse who come to your hospital's ED is a national problem. Many patients present with multiple conditions such as depression or pain, masking the substance abuse issue.

About 30% of patients treated in the ED have positive results when screened for alcohol problems and many return multiple times to the ED, according to a study published in the September 2007 American Journal of Managed Care.

To improve patient care and reduce rehospitalizations, many hospitals are looking to improve their referral and treatment follow-up post discharge. We are gathering information on how hospitals handle billing and discharge issues related to these cases. Thanks for your feedback on these nine questions (please forward to a colleague in your case management department or ED if you don't know the answers).

You can click this link to access the questions: http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB227H4NFMMJN.

We will be developing a report on this subject and will forward you the findings and any hospital best practices in next week's edition of Case Management Weekly. Thanks very much for your time.

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