Reducing Medicaid Hospital Stays to 10 Days

Wow, what a headline in USA Today the other day.  Hawaii is limiting Medicaid inpatient admissions to 10 days and Arizona is going to 25 days. Do you think that it is going to prevent Medicaid recipients from not going to the hospital after they have used their 10 or 25 days? Nope.  The burden once again falls to the hospital.  Hospitals can't and won't refuse treatment or discharge patients on the 11th or 26th day; they will absorb the cost.  The question is how long can these hospitals incur such losses.  As states attempt to balance their budgets, they need to seek more creative solutions to this challenge.