One trend in use of hospital-based services is the common practice of using short-term acute care that provides treatment to patients who have medical needs that only need a brief hospital stay in an acute or critical setting. Examples would be recuperation after a surgery, care following a sudden illness, injury, or flare-up of a chronic illness. This would provide many different types of care from ambulatory services compared to long-term acute care. The factor that helped to account for this trend was that some surgical procedures are reimbursed by their-party payers only when performed in the ambulatory setting, thereby increasing utilization of ambulatory facilities. What is the factor that helped to account for this trend?
1) Increased utilization of ambulatory facilities
2) Short-term acute care
3) Recuperation after surgery
4) Reimbursement by third-party payers