[SeanConnery] “And Ejector Bed? Surely you’re joking Q.” [/SeanConnery]
Hm.
How much do you currently pay for people who are hustled out of the hospital too soon and then require additional hospital time/procedures/medication because of complications associated with a lack of qualified care?
I guess the crux of the matter comes down to this question – If she had come out of her anesthesia at 1:00 instead of 4:00 would the staff have rushed to make sure she was out of there in one hour, or would they have been more relaxed and let her stay until she was more comfortable?
Trunk, In an outpatient situation like this one, I don’t think that staying in the recovery room longer adds to the cost, whether paid by the patient or the insurance. IME, most procedures are “flat rate” and the charge is the same.
I don’t know much about how anesthesia works, but I had a relatively minor (though much more risky) surgery.
I came out of anesthesia beautifully, and I was pretty much fine…but they still kept me in the hospital overnight to make sure that there were no ill effects, that I didn’t start bleeding, etc.
Another in-clinic surgery I had, they gave me way too much anesthesia and it took me twice as long to come out as it should have. They kept me after-hours because they were worried.
I’d much rather have doctors/nurses/CNAs/whatever that kept me around if something goes not-according-to-plan. That’s what my insurance premiums are paid for. Sure, if the individual patient got to decide, it might end up in disaster (some people would stay longer than they had to, some would stay shorter and have complications), but I don’t see why they couldn’t have kept hillybilly queen a little longer just in case. If I were in charge of her, I wouldn’t want a medical malpractice or misadventure lawsuit because proper care wasn’t taken.
Then again, IANAD. I am going to have another surgery soon, since they screwed up the first one, and I’m anxious about the level of care I might receive.
nonsense.
First all, where do she say she paid for this with insurance? I know plenty of people who have payed for day surgery out of their pocket or on medical savings plan.
Second, one of the reasons your paying so much is becaus of malpractice. If patients are treated the way she was, the place could be sued for it, and your premiums go up from that.
I"ve worked in health care, and in health insurance. There are a lot of reasons health care premiums are so rediculous.
The reason people pay so much into insurance is so when they need somehting like this they can get treated decently rather than have to go to some county hospital and be treated like cattle. Again, she was ripped off.
The time they tried to move me out – and it was at least a couple of hours after the surgery, though my memory is pretty fuzzy – I was having extreme nausea. This was completely unexpected because when I was a kid, I’d never had that problem with being put under. This time I did. Dry heaves…ow.
It ended up taking two different drugs to finally get it under control. Both of which went into my IV.
I plan, when I have future surgeries (something orthopedic is fairly likely at some point), to have somebody there who can raise hell on my behalf again. I hate hospitals, but that night, I needed to be there.
And I don’t think anybody should be made to get up and go only an hour after waking up from general, especially if there’d already been problems with it!
Of course you would.
Everybody would. The OP would. I would too.
We’d probably all like a doctor walking around at our side all day long “just in case”.
However, there are costs involved with everything.
Certainly some amount. But I guarantee it doesn’t outweigh the amount that we would pay if every person who was fine to go home spent an extra night.
I assume that the actuaries have run the numbers and determined that the costs associated with the x% who had to be readmitted did not outweigh the costs of keeping overnight the (100-x)% who were able to be let go early, even against their desires.
My experience with day surgery in Canada wasn’t much different than this - I was puking non-stop from the anaesthetic, shaking with low blood sugar from not eating, the nurses were anything but sympathetic, the surgeon came in and told me all about the procedure and what she found when I was still half asleep (to this day I don’t know what she told me) - okay, time for you to go home.
I guess that’s just the way day surgery is now. The only thing I would really change for next time is I would bring a bucket, knowing how I react to anaesthetic, I would bring a nutritious drink (I guess a few of them, since I would just barf them up), and I would insist that the surgeon talk to me when I’m coherent again.
I had a feeling she wasn’t actually a nurse, but I didn’t know what else to call her.
Actually, I’m underweight due to a recent illness. I figured that was the reason I was given too much anesthesia.
Before I went there, I expected to feel pretty bad when I came home. But after the lecture of how well I was going to be treated, and being told I wouldn’t be sent home until I was comfortable, I kind of got it in my head that’s how it would be.
I partially blame the doctor for scheduling it so late. Everyone I know, who has had surgery, had it in the morning. But, I still think they should have a backup plan, for when afternoon surgeries don’t follow their schedule. The clinic is inside the main hospital. It seems like they could’ve either taken me to another area, or had another nurse attend me, while I recovered.
They shaved your pubic area, without informing you of their intention to do so beforehand, while you were under anaesthesia? I would be much more upset about that than you seem to be. My lord.
:eek: I’m having day surgery for my gall bladder on Monday at 12:30! Hope it goes better than this!
So, here’s what I’m getting from this thread.
The perfect day of surgery would be for me to start the surgery, oh let’s say mid-morning. Gives me some time to get up, and not rush to the hospital, but a good recovery time afterwards.
I get my anathestic administered without needing a breathing tube.
I go under for surgery and wake right up afterwards because they were able to perfectly calculate my weight, my metabolic rate, my internal organ’s ability to process the drug, and the exact length of time of surgery.
I find out that they’ve shaved exactly the area they needed to and no more, and none of my hair has tainted the area of operation.
At this point, it’s about 12:00. There’s an RN at my bedside, ready to administer fruit juice, and a morphine drip. My soaps are on.
I now lay in bed for 4 hours until the natural urge to urinate takes me. I rise out of bed clear-headed and take a leak.
4:30 comes around and I get to put on my clothes at a leisurely pace while my head clears.
At 5:00, they gently wheel me to my car where I’m ready to head home, make dinner, get some exercise, watch some tube, and fall asleep peacefully.
Sounds like a nice day overall, doesn’t it?
Nah. Throw up all over their carpet. It’ll teach 'em a lesson about sending you home when you’re not ready.
Last winter I had to take my daughter to the ped because she’d been throwing up for days and had become dehydrated. We brought a bucket, but she’s four and with an esophagous that short … well, sometimes you can’t get the bucket in place in time.
I warned the receptionist that my daughter was really sick and suggested that it might be a good idea to put her straight in an examining room. Of course that was IMPOSSIBLE, we would just have to wait our turn with all the kids who were there for their check-ups and immunizations.
Five minutes later she barfed all over the waiting room couch. It’s amazing how quickly an examining room opened up!
<minor hijack> Trunk, where on earth do you get the idea that the reason premium costs rise is because slackers lay around in hospital longer than they need to, as oppposed to, say, rising cost of equipment, salaries for hospital workers, or even (of course this never happens) because insurance companies are fucking rapacious entities that scam the market for all it’s worth?</end hijack>
Hillbilly Queen, I’m you were treated like you mooed. No one likes that, especially right after having surgery. And I echo what picunurse said. You should have been transferred to an overnight facility for observation.
I guess I’m kind of glad my gall bladder day surgery turned into a 16 inch cut and 5 days hospitalization. I was MORE than ready to go home.
Trunk, you are an imbecile. There’s a concept called situational awareness. Whether you learn it or it or whether it’s ingrained, it’s the little voice that tell you not scratch your crotch during a business meeting; or say, for example, not to post something when you don’t know what you are talking about.
Is it really tough to calculate how much anesthesia is needed? Sure, it probably is. That might be why it’s administered by a specialist. Regardless, let’s allow for the occasional miscalculation. What do we do when it happens? Do we take the time out of the patients recovery, or do we call a doctor in to assess the situation? Remember, this same desire to hustle her out the door led to them giving her medication on an empty stomache that shouldn’t be taken that way.
Let’s also assume that the patient needs go into surgery with a bald muffin. Do we fiddle with her privates while she’s out, or do we inform her of what we are doing and make it part of the prep for surgery while she is awake? Is it really to much to ask?
It’s having the situational awareness to deal with these eventualities that can make a recovery as pleasant as possible, as opposed to unpleasant or even a bit risky.
No kidding.
I understand where Trunk is coming from, but I disagree. I understand that cost is involved. But you know what? People have been paying into their insurance for these things. Just recently, my Dad had lumbar surgery, and they were giving him the bums rush so bad. They couldn’t quite grasp the concept that he was in excruciating pain as it was, and they expected him to sit in a car with this type of surgery for an hour-long car ride. He actually had to plead with them to stay a night. When you’ve had 10 different drugs in you, including the anesthesia, combined with the surgery, what’s one night? “One night is $5,000” you say? Then that’s the problem. :dubious: And the bums rush continued early the next day. We finally decided to leave in the afternoon after a follow up by the surgeon.
I would say “bitch at your insurance company about telling the hospital’s Ut Review nurse and admissions person that you only need one day to recover from lumbar surgery/a hysterectomy/cardiac catheterization.”
Doctors and nurses and anyone with an ounce of sense KNOWS this. Apparently no one who works in an insurance company has an ounce of sense. Unless it applies to dollars. Costs are cut to the bone, and yet it keeps getting more and more expensive.
Oh yeah, good hijack.
I guess it’s right. . .there. . .where I said that “the reason premium costs rise is because slackers lay around in hospital longer than they need to, as oppposed to, say, rising cost of equipment, salaries for hospital workers, or even (of course this never happens) because insurance companies are fucking rapacious entities that scam the market for all it’s worth”
The reason premium costs are so high is because of rising cost of equipment, salaries for hospital workers, or even insurance companies being fucking rapacious entities that scam the market for all it’s worth AND that slackers lay around in hospitals longer than they need (or at least they used to).
That, and about 50 billions other reasons.
The point is, they try to shave costs at every point along the chain. And if the costs of the hospitals getting sued over early “expulsions” plus the costs of readmittings exceeded the costs of unnecessary stays, you can very well assume that we’d all be staying in the hospital a day longer.
Look, there were apparently no problems with Hilllbilly leaving the hospital early. She’s here posting. She hasn’t reported that her wound reopened or that she’s infected.
When she has basically reported is that she felt rushed to leave the hospital.
Boo fuckin’ hoo. We’d all like to lay around until we feel ready to leave somewhere. You people are acting like a hospital stay is a little vaccuum where costs and beds and manpower are somehow unlimited and that hospital “expulsion” policy is not reflected in our premiums, and our stay should only be determined by how we feel.
That’s imbecilic.
Is this really the logic you want to stick with? I mean, are you embarrassed for yourself, or do we have to be embarrassed for you?
“Sure, I did a dozen tequila shooters before getting into my car, but apparently there were no problems. I’m here posting, aren’t I?”
You are too obtuse to discuss this with. I’ll just sit back and snicker from this point on.