Health

Axios - Hospitals that treat patients who require extended stays have been closing at a rapid clip, driving up demand for the remaining beds and prompting health systems to appeal to the Trump administration and Congress for relief.The  industry says it's unable to discharge certain patients who need long-term intensive care, which is adding to hospital overcrowding and stressing a system that's already experiencing a shortage of beds. It's also stoking a debate over the cost of caring for patients with serious wounds or organ failure, or who are on ventilators once they're stabilized.

More than 25% of long-term care hospitals have closed over the past 10 years, according to the American Hospital Association. Hospital groups blame Medicare policies dating to the Obama administration that they say shortchange long-term care hospitals. The issue is that they only give full payments for patients who've spent at least three days in an ICU or been on a ventilator for at least 96 hours.

.... Long-term care hospitals have long been blamed for driving up the cost of post-acute care and accounted for $5.5 billion in annual spending, according to one 2019 study.

• In 202, Stanford and MIT health economists estimated that Medicare could save about $4.6 billion annually without harming patients by sending them to skilled nursing facilities or home, instead of long-term care hospitals. More