ProCaseo created CaseExchange to reduce healthcare costs by facilitating timely patient transfers. An estimated $8 Billion is lost annually in the United States due to delayed discharges and rushed admissions decisions. And that doesn’t even take into account the cost to patient families when patients are subject to multiple moves between different extended care facilities or back to a hospital.

Payers will fund only a limited length of stay in a hospital. Because a patient cannot be discharged until placed for transfer, hospitals often have to cover the cost of unpaid patient days. With the national average bill for a hospital bed at more than $1550 per day, it's easy to see how a delay in discharging a patient can get very expensive very quickly.

Appropriately placing the patient can be a complicated process, involving the discharge planner at the hospital, the patient and the patient's family, the destination's admissions staff, and third-party payers, who must all agree. Without agreement, costly delays result.

Destination facilities want to maximize the utilization of their resources while attracting the most appropriate patients for the services they offer.  For example, a nursing home wants its beds to be occupied, but they need to avoid committing to providing expensive treatments for which they will not qualify for reimbursement.

And this problem can only get worse as our population ages and as payer pressure increases to reduce length of stay.  The average length of stay in acute care hospitals is now under 5.4 days and dropping, and the elderly population, most in need of post-discharge support, is growing rapidly as baby boomers age.

It's about time to do something about this problem.