Medicare Patients At Busy Hospitals May Fare Better

This is not to suggest that patients in need of emergency care should head to the busiest hospital in their area. However, a large study of Medicare patients recently reported that people who are hospitalized with a heart attack, heart failure or pneumonia fare better if they are admitted to a facility that treats a lot of those problems.

Of course it’s logical that if the hospital is seeing a lot of these cases they will be better at handling the situation, suggests Alan Weinstock, insurance broker at http://www.MedicareSupplementPlans.com. That being said, experts advise that if you’re in the middle of a heart attack, it’s best to choose the facility nearest you whether it is the busiest or not. However, if you have a chronic condition, you have the option to shop around.

Medicare Beneficiaries Have a Tool to Find the Best Facility

The federal government offers an online tool which allows Medicare beneficiaries and other consumers to compare hospitals. At http://www.HospitalCompare.hhs.gov you can find a list of death rates from common health problems, data on hospital volume and types of treatments.

This tool reviews how well hospitals care for patients with certain medical conditions or surgical procedures along with the results from patient surveys about the quality of care they received during their hospital stay. A hospital’s performance can be compared to the national average and other facilities. The web site lists death rates from common health problems and data on hospital volume and types of treatment. A hospital’s performance can be compared to the national average and other facilities. All these factors should be considered when selecting a facility.

The purpose of this information is to help you make an informed decision about where to receive your care. It’s important to talk to your health care provider and family to help you make the best health care decisions.

What the Survey Results Found

The survey, published in March 2010, looked at Medicare claims from 2004 through 2006 for three leading causes of hospitalization among the elderly: heart attacks, heart failure and pneumonia.

During the study period there were approximately 735,000 people hospitalized for heart attacks as well as over one million hospitalizations each for heart failure and pneumonia. More than 4,000 hospitals were included in the study.

On average, the larger hospitals in the study treated 236 heart attacks, 422 heart failures and 405 pneumonia cases a year. Compared to smaller hospitals, the risk of death within a month of admission was 11 percent lower for heart attacks, 9 percent lower for heart failure and 5 percent lower for pneumonia.

Another very important point that both this survey and the federal government’s hospital compare tool make, says Weinstock, is that it is always advisable to conduct research before making an important health care decision.