Staying Against Medical Advice: Top 15 Reasons!

Much has been said about patients who leave against medical advice, but little has been described  about patients who stay against medical advice.  When a hospital setting is no longer appropriate for a patient, a physician will recommend discharge to the next appropriate level of care.  For most well adjusted patients, the hospital is the last place in the world they want to be, but for a select subset of customers,  the hospital is the only place they would like to be.The average adult probably finds it hard to believe some patients actually want to stay in the hospital longer than necessary, but it's true.Staying longer than necessary does come with risk, including hospital acquired infections, medication errors and other unspecified iatrogenic badness.  But, try explaining that to the clientele refusing to leave and many doctors risk getting a 4 instead of a 5 on their patient satisfaction experience scorecard.Staying Against Medical Advice is your right!Remember, an unsatisfied patient is a hazard to a hospital's health.  With Medicare paying hospitals these days partly based on the patient experience, hospitals and their healthcare providers must walk an often impossible line between doing what's good for the patient and what's good for the patient experience.In fact, Medicare believes so strongly in a patient's right to refuse discharge and stay against medical advice, they have a form that allows the patient to stay against medical advice...

Source: The Happy Hospitalist - May 15, 2015 Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Tamer Mahrous Source Type: blogs