'Super-utilizer' Medicare, Medicaid patients weigh on hospitals

Medicare and Medicaid patients admitted to Pennsylvania hospitals five or more times in a year cost those programs $761 million, a new report has found, with a disproportionate share needing treatment for mental health disorders — a condition many hospitals are not equipped to handle. The so-called "super-utilizers" of hospital services represent 11 percent of all hospital admissions but 14 percent of all Medicare inpatient payments ($545 million) and 17 percent of all Medicaid payments ($216 million) for in-patient stays, according to the report by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council, an independent state agency that collects hospital data.