In the news: PA doc justifies "unnecessary" admission

Although the healthcare community is trying to reduce the number of admissions to cut down on costs, as more patients lose their health insurance, physicians may need to make some difficult decisions. Jesse M. Pines, MD, MBA, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Epidemiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and a Senior Fellow in the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, writes about how he felt it necessary to admit a cancer patient without an immediate medical need in a July 31 Wall Street Journal article. His article highlights that the rules for defining when a patient should be admitted to the hospital may get hazy given the current economy.