It's all about the Money

[jlog.j]

The only thing is that too many times (b/c this company wants as many admissions as possible and the ER doc comes down to the floor and states "I have to meet my quota") that we, the m/s nurse does not get the true picture of the pt. and like I said we do not have an ICU to transfer a critical pt to, so we have to transfer to a hospital 80 miles away.

It would be much safer to begin with for the pt to go ahead and be transferred from the ER, it is much quicker to do a ER to ER transfer than M/S to ER.

But NOOOO, we don't make any money that way, we have to have ADMISSIONS (whether they are appropriate for our unit or not.

It's very sickening to see how these "for profit" hospitals are ripping off medicare. They either admit people who do not need or want to be in the hospital at all or they admit people who are not stable enough for our small hospital.

In the final analysis, they are gambling with these peoples' lives.

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

Whew...for a moment I thought this was going to be yet another tired "going into the nursing for financial reasons vs. nursing is a calling" thread.

I have to agree with you. I think that a lot of facilities are looking at the financial bottom line, and whenever there is a empty bed they start freaking out and try to fill it at whatever costs. Unfortunately admissions/management aren't looking at the patient and their health, probably because they're not involved in direct patient care and don't truly understand what's going on with the patient. Instead, it's "gotta fill the bed, gotta fill the bed." The patients are the ones who often suffer, especially when a facility that admitted them isn't really equipped to handle the patient in the first place.

OP: you may also want to edit your post since you have some HTML in it that's taking forever to load.

[betterlatethennever]

I agee that hospitals are all about money instead of quality of care. I know hospitals need money to stay in business. When the economy went south back in 2008 I witness the closure of our sister hospital so I understand that as much as with care about the patient its still a business and needs money to stay afloat. With that being said what ****** me off is these administrators have no pride in the business they run. They don't staff according to acuity just by numbers (ratio) There are days when basic pts needs can't be met cause no matter how hard I try I can't be in 2 places at once. The facility I work at has paid out numerous lawsuits,violatating federal labor laws,hippa violations,etc that if they had pride in how their business was run they could have avoided. Our union has a meeting this week with management and most of the stuff that we are complaining about could be dealt with at a regular staff meeting instead of having our union there but the problem is that everytime we suggest something of how to help run the floor more efficently it is ignored and viewed as a complaint. It gets tiring.

[jlog.j]

I totally agree, we are not union however.

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

wonder if you really have all the facts or does it just seem this way to you. Remember, they might not need you if they can transfer directly out of ER without patient being stable first.

[tokmom, BSN, RN]

How can they admit if it's not an appropriate admission? OMG, we get reamed, as do the MD's, if they admit somebody that could have been worked up out patient or observation status. It's a huge deal. We have had hours upon hours of education on what constitues an inpatient stay. If the supervisor is uncertain they call this phone number that for 300.00 can tell you if it's appropriate. Considering the average daily stay is 3900.00, that would be lost if inappropriate, the 300 is a drop in the bucket!