A New York Times article by Jane Gross highlights a costly healthcare problem: avoidable hospital readmissions, which affect one in five patients and account for $17.4 billion of the current $102.6 billion Medicare budget. (When people talk about readmissions, they're generally referring to an admission within 30 days of the previous admission for the same condition.)
When patients end up back in the hospital, it's often because their care didn't continue appropriately when they were first discharged. Patients leaving the hospital should receive detailed instructions about what they need to…
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