An original budgeting plan, aiming at drastic reductions in all classes of hospitalization in keeping with the present economic situation, has been adopted by the board of directors of Mount Zion Hospital, an agency of the Federation of Jewish Charities.
According to hospital authorities, the plan never has been tried before in the United States and is the result of an intensive effort to bring hospital care within the means of people of small incomes. In the main, reductions of 10 and 11 per cent have been effected.
The plan provides an offer of flat rates for patients requiring hospital care for varying periods of five, ten and fourteen days for surgical cases. This affords an opportunity for patients to know in advance exactly what hospitalization will cost them and to budget accordingly.
In medical cases a flat charge of 50 cents a day is to be made for hospital supplies and the like, eliminating the former method of itemizing each article included in the supplies. In the basic rate schedule for surgical cases this charge is absorbed.
It is expected that the plan will serve to greatly lighten the burden on people of curtailed means requiring hospitalization and the result of its application is being watched by physicians and hospital authorities throughout the city.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
