A survey of Minnesota hospitals has discovered persistent, ongoing delays in discharges from emergency departments and inpatient care, leading to tens of hundreds of days of pointless hospital-level affected person care and monetary losses for the hospitals.
The survey of 101 hospitals by the Minnesota Hospital Affiliation (MHA) follows related knowledge assortment by the Minnesota Division of Human Providers within the first 5 months of 2023, which discovered greater than 76,245 days of pointless hospital care. The brand new survey discovered 65,555 further days of pointless affected person stays June via October. (The brand new knowledge displays ordinary seasonal variation in hospital care, in addition to adjustments in administrative knowledge assortment, in accordance with MHA.) These surveys symbolize an annual complete of almost 195,000 affected person days of avoidable and unpaid care. This affected person gridlock not solely reduces general capability for hospital care; it additionally price Minnesota hospitals and well being methods an estimated $487 million in unpaid care, MHA mentioned.
“Minnesota hospitals have gone from being a security web, to being a catch-all for affected person care,” mentioned Minnesota Hospital Affiliation CEO and President Rahul Koranne, M.D., M.B.A., in a press release. “This can be a operate they had been by no means supposed for, can’t afford, and isn’t good for sufferers. This gridlock is stopping Minnesotans from getting care that their lives rely on. Coverage makers should act.”
These delays embrace sufferers caught in hospital beds ready for transfers to nursing houses, rehabilitation items, psychological well being remedy amenities, and different sub-acute care amenities. The newest survey additionally discovered hospitals supplied 9,223 days of emergency division stays, usually folks caught ready for inpatient care, or just delivered to a hospital for lack of any various. These stays elevated waits for different sufferers who want care and compelled some sufferers to seek out different care elsewhere, with doubtlessly life-altering delay.
MHA additionally makes the case that this stage of unpaid care is unsustainable and is a root trigger of economic misery for hospitals all around the nation, mixed with payers that don’t cowl the total prices of care, and fast-rising prices. Within the first half of 2023, 67 p.c of Minnesota hospitals reported working losses. Two hospitals lately closed in western Wisconsin.
Koranne famous the Minnesota Division of Well being has already had three hearings on hospital service closures in January – half of the entire for all of final yr in Minnesota. “We’re at a important level,” he mentioned. “Our hospitals are going through immense monetary strain. We’d like actual and quick monetary help from the legislature within the coming weeks to stop additional service or facility closures and to make sure entry to high quality well being take care of all Minnesotans.”
