Rehospitalizations among Patients in the Medicare Fee-for-Service Program

To the Editor: In the special article on rehospitalizations among patients in Medicare fee-for-service programs, Jencks et al. (April 2 issue) 1 conclude that rehospitalizations among Medicare beneficiaries are prevalent and costly. In the recent report, mentioned in the article by Jencks et al., of the lack of benefit of coordination of care in the Medicare demonstration projects, the coordination of care consisted primarily of monitoring the patient by telephone and of providing patient education. 2 Although this type of disease management might be helpful for elderly people who can direct their own care, it is not surprising that it would be . . .