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Managed care has not improved patient flow

Case Management Weekly, October 6, 2005

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The past decade of managed care has not brought the expected improvements to patient flow. Instead, more people without insurance or without means to pay for regular physician visits are clogging emergency rooms, according to an article in the Bridgeport-based Connecticut Post.

Officials at local hospitals explained that the initial results of managed care showed good progress in reducing the average patient's length of stay through preventive care. As a result, hospitals began to eliminate beds in their facilities. Connecticut has lost 22% of its beds in the last 12 years.

However, the progress has been undone by an aging population that requires more time in the hospital, and other people who add to the hospital clog, such as those not covered by insurance. These people use the emergency room for medical care, creating bottlenecks in that department and in transitions to other hospital departments, which all add to the congestion.

Source: Patient Flow Weekly, HCPro, Inc.

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