What is LTACH?
LTACH is an acronym for Long Term Acute Term Hospital. Actually it simply refers to long-term care hospitals, but it seems some in the
business can't help but get fancy. Not just a long term care hospital but a long term ACUTE care hospital. You know, we
take care of people who have acute problems. Acute is one of those words that has been used for so long by people who don't know
what it means that it has come to mean something else to the less informed. So it seems that if something is acute it must be very serious,
life-threatening even. Yeah, that gets their attention.
The way a few years back the term 'first responders' became de rigueur in the news media. First responders are really really really important and
deserving of the highest praise and adulation. As if we regular people watching the news don't know that firefighters, police, EMTs
and such are really really really important. We regular people need to be reminded constantly, as we're just not that smart.
So while 'long-term care hospital' doesn't have quite the linguistic cachet, but a long term ACUTE care hospital - those are seriously wonderful institutions
and the people there are the greatest of course. Right up there with first responders. That wasn't my experience when I was in one for a few months, for a
problem that would have taken a competent facility a few weeks to fix.
Anyone with any sense will see the contradiction. If you're acute for very long without successful treatment you'll most likely be dead or too far gone
to recover, as I almost was. I only survived because my family got me out in time as I was nearing the point of no return. So-called LTACHs are revenue
generators and the longer it takes a patient to either recover or expire the more money they are paid.
You need only Google 'LTACH fraud' to learn that LTACHs are no different from the rest of the Medical Industry, except possibly by exceeding it in the area
of incompetence and fraud. I don't know whether or not it does, but its self-aggrandizement doesn't look good.
LTACHs as they call themselves exist thanks to a law passed by Congress in 1999. Laws are written by lobbyists for the industries
benefitting from their passage to be financially advantageous for them, generally through enhanced revenue or reduced taxes or both.
Essentially, under the new law they get paid more than regular hospitals if they comply with the requirements of the law. By the way, the word
acute is not used in the law. The proper term is 'long term care hospital'. Got it?
One interesting provision is that the average patient stay must be 25 days. Now surely no hospital would ensure that by keeping some patients longer
than necessary, would they? Why not, regular hospitals do it.
As the
Wikipedia article observes:
There is some criticism surrounding the frequency with which patients develop serious infections in LTACHs, which can occur three times as much as in conventional hospitals.
"Long-term care hospitals, which have grown rapidly in the last 25 years (1996-2021?), are cited as having almost twice the number of Medicare violations as standard hospitals,
and also have higher incidents of bedsores and infections." Other criticisms include the motivation for transferring patients to LTACHs and the timing surrounding patient
discharge from LTACHs, which appear in part to be based on financial considerations stemming from the complex LTACH payment regulations in the United States.
Medical malpractice and fraud, like corruption elsewhere, have become so common as to numb the perceptions of us regular people. Here are a few examples:
Select Medical pays $3.5 million....
Post Acute Medical to Pay More Than $13 Million...
New Jersey hospital agrees to $30 million settlement...
Whistleblower receives nearly $5 million...
Last updated: Thu 04 Apr 2024 07:28:00 PM CDT : 1712276880
