Can Early Hospital Discharge Lead To Worse Outcomes?

When a hospital discharges a patient before it’s safe to do so, the consequences can be deadly. Unfortunately, the true number of patients who are discharged too soon is unknown, but one measure that’s often used is the rate of hospital readmissions within 30 days of discharge. Among Medicare beneficiaries, for example, a shocking 20 percent of patients are readmitted within 30 days of leaving the hospital. While some of these readmissions are unrelated to their initial hospital visit, many are readmitted because their condition got worse after they left the hospital’s care, leaving patients and their families to wonder if their health was negatively impacted by being discharged too soon.

How And When Should A Hospital Discharge Occur?

When someone is admitted to the hospital to treat a serious illness or injury, they will usually stay there until they’re stable enough to no longer need around-the-clock inpatient care. Once it’s safe for them to leave the hospital, the patient and their care team have a decision to make. Should they be sent home or to a skilled nursing or rehab facility? The answer to this question depends on the level of care that the patient still requires, their ability to treat their condition at home, and the level of support available to them from family and friends. Home health nurses are often provided to assist patients at home who need occasional help with wound care or their medications. Follow-up phone calls or appointments with a healthcare provider can be helpful to ensure that patients understand and follow their discharge instructions and can help their medical team identify any potential problems before they lead to a serious worsening of their condition.

What Can Happen When Someone Is Discharged Early?

Unfortunately, many reasons for a patient to be discharged have nothing to do with their health and safety, including misdiagnosis, hospital occupancy limitations, inadequate staffing, and insurance reimbursement. The primary concern when people are discharged before they’re medically stable is that their condition can worsen, leading to readmissions and added health risks.

Patients discharged early can be more susceptible to infections, partly because they don’t have the same sterile environment and medical supervision that a hospital provides. They may not be able to manage their medication regimen on their own or be discharged before they’ve secured a pharmacy to provide their medication. Even if someone is stabilized and no longer needs inpatient care, if they haven’t had time to make arrangements with family and friends to assist them in their recovery, a seemingly appropriate discharge can result in quick readmission when their condition deteriorates.

How Can You Tell If An Early Discharge Contributed To Complications or Death?

Unfortunately, even when providers follow all of the recommended guidelines and don’t discharge the patient until they’re stable and have the proper outpatient support, their condition can worsen after they leave the hospital. That said, far too many patients are discharged from the hospital too soon and often experience worsening of their condition and readmission to the hospital.

Misdiagnosis (or a lack of diagnosis) is one of the easiest forms of negligence to identify in these situations, especially when a diagnosis would have been made if the healthcare provider had performed the proper testing and waited to discharge the patient until they received the results of those tests.

A rushed discharge, often due to insurance requirements or bed availability, can mean that a patient is released before they’re fully stable, raising the odds that their condition will further deteriorate at home. A heart attack victim, for example, shouldn’t be made to return home if their newly prescribed blood pressure medication makes them too dizzy to stand without fainting or falling.

A rushed discharge can also mean that a patient may not receive or may not understand the instructions they need to follow at home to continue their recovery. Doctors may also neglect to consider the environment they’re releasing the patient into when discharging someone. For example, if someone cannot shower alone and has no friends and family available to help, they may not be able to keep a wound clean without the help of a home health nurse.

How Can Ross Feller Casey Help?

The expert lawyers and Ivy League-trained doctors at Ross Feller Casey are ready to put their experience to work for you. We’ve built a reputation for obtaining numerous multimillion results in medical malpractice lawsuits involving early discharges, including:

• $26.3 million for a man who suffered a brain and spinal cord injury after being discharged from the ER too soon
• A $6.4 million verdict won for a man’s family after he died from an undiagnosed heart condition after being discharged before appropriate testing was performed

If you believe that you or a loved one was discharged from the hospital too soon, resulting in catastrophic injury or death, contact us today for a free consultation. We handle all of our cases, including early discharge lawsuits, on a contingency basis. That means you will never pay a thing until a financial recovery is made in your case.