PRINCETON, N.J. (AP) — When a patient was moved from the intensive care unit to a regular hospital bed, it used to be routine for Dr. Anthony Granato to order 24 hours of heart monitoring, just in case.
A few years ago, his thinking changed: If the patient was in good enough condition to be out of the ICU, he would not need the extra monitoring at a cost of more than $1,000 per day.
The main reason for the shift for Granato, a pulmonary critical care doctor, is a program introduced in a dozen New Jersey hospital in 2009. It pays doctors when they save money for the hospitals as they treat patients covered by Medicare.
"We never before looked at what our costs were in the hospitals," Granato said. "Some things we always do because we always just do them."
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