I didn’t realize this. Patients who are admitted under “observation” status gets shafted by Medicare for drugs. This is a terrible loophole.
As an internist, when someone was admitted, it didn’t matter to me whether they were admitted to “inpatient” or “observation” status. The work was the same. To patients, an overnight stay at the hospital counts as an admission. The only difference is how the visit was coded. And trust me, this decision was purely subjective.
