http://goo.gl/BV3mQk
As reported by the Times last week, patients who are held at a hospital for "observation," even if that observation lasts days, but not formally admitted, and later released to a nursing home, won't have their stay in the nursing home covered by Medicare. That stay can cost tens of thousands of dollars. So Congress passed a law mandating disclosure of that fact. So far, so good. But there's a problem. Remember that patients get this disclosure in a hospital, when they may be seriously ill and not at their best, and that they may also be deluged by other forms. Will they pay attention to this disclosure, in light of the evidence that consumers largely disregard or misinterpret disclosures? Some evidence even indicates that consumers can't absorb disclosures in the medical context. Here's the new disclosure, which spans two pages (the formatting didn't survive pasting in, but you can view it here):