A blog by St. Petersburg cardiologist and author David Mokotoff published in Kevin MD talks about how the length of a hospital stay has changed over the years depending on how Medicare pays. The stays used to be too long, then they were too short. Now Medicare is penalizing hospitals if they don't get patients on the road to recovery before sending them home.
Maybe the best idea would be for insurers to designate centers of excellence -- where a patient stay is not too short, not too long, but just right.