News Report | January 3, 2014
Use Of Medicare Observation Services Rises 62% Between 2001 & 2009
Hospital use of Medicare observation services increased by 62% since 2001, from 24.9 per 1,000 beneficiaries in 2001, to 40.3 per 1,000 beneficiaries in 2009. During the same period, inpatient stays dropped by 16.6%, from 310.1 per 1,000 in 2001 to 258.7 per 1,000 in 2009. In 2009, about 2.1 million Medicare beneficiaries used hospital observation services; they represented about 3.5% of all Medicare beneficiaries that year.
Medicare beneficiaries on observation are not formally admitted as hospital patients; instead, they are considered outpatients although observation takes . . .