https://www.usatoday.com/story...patients/3840199002/

One patient at Denver Health, the city’s largest safety net hospital, occupied a bed for more than four years – a hospital record of 1,558 days.

Another admitted for a hard-to-treat bacterial infection needed eight weeks of at-home IV antibiotics, but had no home.

A third, with dementia, came to the hospital after being released from the Denver County Jail. His family refused to take him back.

In the first half of this year alone, the hospital treated more than 100 long-term patients. All had medical issues that led to their initial hospitalization. But none of the patients had a medical reason for remaining in the hospital for most of their stay

Legally and morally, hospitals cannot discharge patients if they have no safe place to go.

So patients who are homeless, frail or live alone, or have unstable housing, can occupy hospital beds for weeks or months – long after their acute medical problem is resolved. For hospitals, it means losing money because a patient lingering in a bed without medical problems doesn’t generate much, if any, income. Meanwhile, acutely ill patients may wait days in the ER to be moved to a floor because a hospital’s beds are full.

It costs Denver Health $2,700 a night to keep someone in the hospital

To address the problem, hospitals from Baltimore to St. Louis to Sacramento, California, are exploring ways to help patients find a home. With recent federal policy changes that encourage hospitals to allocate charity dollars for housing, many hospitals realize it’s cheaper to provide a month of housing than to keep patients for a single night.

Hospital executives find the calculus works even if they have to build affordable housing units themselves. It’s why Denver Health is partnering with the Denver Housing Authority to repurpose a mothballed building on the hospital campus into affordable senior housing, including about 15 apartments designated to help homeless patients transition out of the hospital.

Patients who are prime candidates for the transitional units stay on average 73 days, for a total cost to the hospital of nearly $200,000. The hospital estimates it would cost a fraction of that, about $10,000, to house a patient for a year instead.

“The hospital really is like the most expensive form of housing,” Stella said.

who would have thought ?

Reynolds said the trend is due in part to the Affordable Care Act, which requires hospitals to perform a community needs assessment to help guide their charitable efforts. That prompted more hospitals to consider the social needs of their patients and pushed housing concerns up the list. Additionally, the Internal Revenue Service clarified in 2015 that hospitals could claim housing investments as charitable spending required under their tax-free status. And provisions included in the 2017 tax cut bill provided significant tax savings for investors in newly designated opportunity zones, increasing their interest in affordable housing projects

In the southwestern corner of Colorado, Centura Health’s Mercy Regional Medical Center has partnered with Housing Solutions for the Southwest to prioritize housing vouchers for frequent users of the emergency room.

Under a program funded by the Catholic Health Initiatives, Mercy hired a social worker and a case manager to review records of frequent emergency room patients. They quickly realized how big an issue housing was for those patients. Many had diabetes and depended on insulin – which needs refrigeration. Kidney failure was one of the most costly diagnoses for the hospital.

Once patients received housing vouchers and found stable housing, though, costs began to drop.

“We now knew where they were. We knew that they had a safe place to live,” said Elsa Inman, program coordinator at Mercy Regional. “We knew they would be more effective in managing their chronic conditions.”

more at link

So the commie fucktards in office who purposely created this huge homeless population in the Denver area are now using this "crisis" to funnel money away from taxpayers into the hands of.....their corrupt buddies at HUD and dept. of housing.
Let me guess, they are looking specifically at the properties corrupt mayor Hancock has his dirty hands in.
Shocker! I'm Shocked!

https://www.reit.com/what-reit...rs/health-care-reits

It is serious business. Nothing new here.

I love it. Significant deductions for developing housing in certain zones. Rich guy buys houses, leases them all to his buddy the ceo at the hospital for great money. Hospital is still saving.

The local residents don't get free stuff...

hahahahaha

quote:

Originally posted by Ryanp225:
So the commie fucktards in office who purposely created this huge homeless population in the Denver area are now using this "crisis" to funnel money away from taxpayers into the hands of.....their corrupt buddies at HUD and dept. of housing.
Let me guess, they are looking specifically at the properties corrupt mayor Hancock has his dirty hands in.
Shocker! I'm Shocked!

It's widespread enough across the US that I think it's beyond the normal Demonrat graft. I'm thinking we're seeing the Cloward-Piven strategy being implemented in the form of using the homeless to overwhelm the system.

quote:

Originally posted by Ryanp225:
So the commie fucktards in office who purposely created this huge homeless population in the Denver area are now using this "crisis" to funnel money away from taxpayers into the hands of.....their corrupt buddies at HUD and dept. of housing.
Let me guess, they are looking specifically at the properties corrupt mayor Hancock has his dirty hands in.
Shocker! I'm Shocked!

We stay as far away from "Denver" as we can. Suburbs are great but Denver is going to end up being another San Fran.

16th street mall used to be a great place to hang out... not anymore.

James in "Denver"

I was stationed at Ft. Carson back in 1960-61. We had some family business to conduct and had to go to Denver to get it done.

There were areas, even back then, that we were advised NOT TO GO TO, OR THRU.

No idea how it is there now, but given the commie slant of the state, can't see that it improved much.