I have had a couple out-patient surgeries and they always rush me out before I am even awake enough to walk straight. One time I almost fell over in the bathroom because I was so dizzy but they insisted I go to the bathroom there rather than use a bedpan. I always thought It was becasue they needed the bed for the next patient but I recently had a endoscopy with anesthesia and they were trying to get me to leave before I could hardly keep my eyes open. At this point the recovery area was almost empty except for me so they didn’t need the bed and the other nurses were sitting in another room playing cards and chit chatting with each other. Why do they rush you out so quick?
Basically, it’s all about money. Insurance companies don’t want to pay for the extra time and care while you are in the hospital, and hospitals try to maximize their profits by giving you the least care medically necessary so that they can keep their staff smaller and spend less time and materials treating you.
Yes, it’s likely about the money. If you’re not recovered enough to walk, or you’re feeling dizzy, say no. It’s in their best interest to keep you as well. If you get injured because they rushed you out (say, you fall because you’re still unsteady), they have some liability (I believe. IANAL).
The above is correct but having been on the other side MANY times watching patients come out of sedation, they can fool you with how lucid they are when in fact they will eventually have no memory of the conversation you’re having.
After waking up from a six day coma, I apparently got a bit racist with one of the nurses. She was a larger black woman and I started calling her “Aunt Jemima” and yelling at her for stuff she had nothing to do with. :o This was so entirely different from my normal self and I didn’t remember any of the exchanges. Thankfully this nurse was a pro and just laughed.
I had a total hip replacement on 5/4 and they were willing to send me home the next day. I held out for an extra day in the hospital.
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It isn’t all about money. It is easy to pick up infections in hospitals, and mistakes happen with medication, etc. The longer you are in a hospital without really needing to be, the greater the chance that something bad happens to you, or you pass a cold on to someone immune compromised, etc.
It’s also about bed capacity. Many hospitals just don’t have the capacity to allow patients to recuperate for days or weeks. Beds are needed for more urgent cases and if the patient can safely recuperate at home then they will be discharged.
Yep.
You are (within obvious limits) better off spending as little time in the hospital as possible.
Another advantage to getting out of the place is you don’t have to listen to endless repetitions of Brahms’ “Lullaby” on the P.A. system every time someone disgorges a baby, calls of “STROKE ALERT!!!” and requests to unknown malefactors to move their cars out of the ER turnaround.
For my lumpectomy and oophorectomy, I was sent home the same day.
For my hysterectomy, I was kept overnight. I didn’t have to ask…my surgeon told me I’d be spending the night in the hospital during my consult.
When the kidlets were born way back when, I spent the night in the hospital. Both times I shared a room with another mother, but for my hysterectomy, I had a room to myself. I managed to take a walk around the floor after I got out of surgery and noticed all the rooms were private rooms. Does that have something to do with HIPAA?
Cutting short hospital stays I get, but what about cutting short outpatient stays as described in the OP? This hasn’t been my experience, but I can believe it for some places.
As for hospitals, it might be partially improved technology for less-invasive procedures. When my father was 40 he was in the hospital for over a month after a blood clot (1962). When he was 90 he had another, got a stent put in through his leg, and was in for only one night after the operation.
My daughter’s had three children in the same hospital where she and her sister were born, and in all three cases she had a beautiful private room. The standard when I was of childbearing age was two beds per room.
I think it’s related to a number of things. First, when we baby-boomers were having children, there was less room in the maternity wards since there are so many of us. Also mothers and babies stay a shorter time in the hospital now, which frees up space. I was in the hospital for IIRC four days; today it’s more like two unless there are good medical reasons for a longer stay. Therefore, there is more room available, and there is more competition among hospitals. They actually advertise how nice their service and environment is.
For uncomplicated births in our closest hospital, the labor and delivery happen in the same private room. No more being *automatically *wheeled into the stainless steel operating room. (Of course more extensive facilities are immediately available if problems occur.) The labor/delivery room superficially resembles a nice hotel room, but has all of the necessary medical equipment readily accessible within wall cabinets.
It’s certainly interesting how things have changed. My mom told me that back in the '40s mothers were expected to stay in bed for at least a week, maybe two. She had a quick, normal delivery for both my sister and me. Being the intelligent and independent-minded woman she was, she disobeyed hospital orders and got out of bed at night when no one was around. After a few days she told the doctors she wanted to go home. They laughed and said she was too weak to do so. She said, “I am not!” and got up and walked around the room a couple of times.
they even have a name for an infection you get in a hospital : nosocomial infection
Things have certainly changed over the years. I have suffered from nasal polyps which keep coming back. The first time, in the 70s, I had them removed I stayed in hospital from Monday to Friday. It was great - we spent a good deal of our time sitting in deck chairs on the lawn chatting to the nurses who bought us tea. The second time, in the 90s involved a one night stay and the third time five years later was day surgery.
In the UK, a mother who has an uncomplicated birth would be discharged a few hours later. There is an increasing trend to home deliveries, especially after the first. Being in hospital is risky - It is a judgement call as to whether staying in or going home is the greater risk.
I had a discectomy and fussed until they sent me home the same day. Who wants to sleep in a hospital with lines in your arms and nurses coming in every couple hours?
Depends on what the nurses look like. 
And one of the lines WAS a morphine drip I could control…maybe I should have stayed longer.
I think this is most of it. It’s also I’ve been told the rational for no longer having semi-private rooms or “wards.”
I had surgery for kidney stones a couple years ago. The invasive one, where they went in through my back; the 3 times I’ve had the noninvasive surgery were all done on an outpatient basis. I went in on Monday, the radiologist put the guide wire in my back, and they admitted me. The actual surgery was on Tuesday. I was scheduled to go home on Friday.*
However I developed a low-grade fever and they kept me an extra day. It was not really a big deal – I felt like crap anyway.
Having said that, the three times I had outpatient surgery I didn’t feel like they were rushing me out. I went from the recovery room to whatever they call the private rooms with the recliners they do the surgery prep in. The nurses made sure I ate and drank something and peed before they released me.
- I asked my primary care physician why, since the surgery was touted as “minimally invasive,” I needed to be in the hospital so long. Her succinct answer, “Kidneys bleed.” And indeed the fluid coming out of the tube in my back that went to my kidney started out pretty red, and was still pinkish when they removed the tube and sent me home.
It has to do with the trend away from fee for service medicine to bundled payments. The hospital will get paid a certain amount for a particular procedure, regardless of how long you are actually in the hospital. Due to that payment structure, the incentive is to get people out the door as quickly as possible. Doctors are also scored by the average length of stay for their patients. At my company some of the bonus money the physicians earn can be withheld if that particular physician has too high an average length of stay.
Righto. A balance must be struck between a very expensive bed and a possible very expensive relapse if the patient is sent home too early.