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Move back to managed care will hurt patient flow

Case Management Weekly, September 7, 2005

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An opinion piece in the Boston Globe warns that moving to managed care will force patients out of hospitals before they're ready to go, which will lead to more return visits. The op-ed was written in response to Tufts Insurance's statement it would begin to aggressively manage cases with insurer nurses in hospitals. According to Suzanne Gordon, author of Nursing Against the Odds: How Hospital Cost-Cutting, Media Stereotypes, and Medical Hubris Undermine Nurses and Patient Care, managed care deteriorates the relationship nurses share with physicians and patients. Using insurance algorithms to determine patient stays and having insurer nurses haranguing staff to kick a patient off the floor increases stress and doesn't serve the patient's best needs. The stress created by managed care (which Gordon derisively referred to as "mangled care") also led to many nurse layoffs and resignations in the 1990s, leading to today's nursing shortages, according to Gordon. A return to managed care will only exacerbate the staffing problems. The only real way to control costs is to move towards a universal healthcare system, wrote Gordon.

To read the complete opinion piece, click here.

Source: Patient Flow Weekly, HCPro, Inc.

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