Medicare will not pay in hospitals errors
Medicare announced recently that starting in October they will not pay hospitals if a certain errors are committed. This is their way to push for patient safety. Other insurers such as Aetna are considering the same. In response, hospitals are exploring innovative programs to prevent injury and infection. Those include hand-washing spies and surgical sponges that sound an alarm if left in the body. “Money talks,” says Dr. Steven Gordon, infectious disease chief at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. “Every hospital CFO, this gets their attention.” One change seen may be the decreased use of urinary catheters, which have triggered more than half a million urinary tract infections a year, the most common hospital-caused infection. The University of Michigan reported on a national study in which it found fewer than one in 10 hospitals check daily to see if a catheter is still needed. The urinary tract infection is one of Medicare’s top do-not-pay examples from the list. Starting October 1st, Medicare will no longer pay for eight preventable hospital errors, including catheter caused urinary tract infections, injuries from falls and leaving objects in the body after surgery. Nor can hospitals bill the injured patient for the extra costs in treating those mistakes. Next year, Medicare will add to the no-pay list; ventilator-caused pneumonia and drug-resistant staph infections. Medicare, which insures about 44 million elderly and disabled people, estimates the move will save the government about $190 million over five years.
