Medicare Stops Paying Hospitals for Harming Patients Starting Today
Non-Payment rules seek to spur hospitals to improve patient safety
Oct. 1, 2008 - New federal regulations to restrict Medicare payments to hospitals for the extra care required to treat patients harmed by certain preventable infections and medical errors that occur at the hospital go into effect today. The rules adopted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) aim to provide hospitals with a financial incentive to improve patient care.
“Medicare’s new policy sends a powerful message to hospitals that harming patients will harm their bottom line,” said Lisa McGiffert, Director of Consumers Union’s Stop Hospital Infection’s campaign (www.StopHospitalInfections.org
“This policy will help prevent needless suffering and deaths and ultimately ensure that the health care taxpayers pay for is safe and effective.”
Under the new regulations, CMS will withhold payments to hospitals for care needed after patients suffer from certain hospital acquired urinary tract infections; certain bloodstream infections and select surgical site infections - specifically from coronary artery bypass graft (CABG), certain weight loss surgery (laparoscopic gastric restrictive surgery and gastroeneterostomoy), and orthopedic procedures (spine, neck, shoulder, elbow).
Other hospital acquired conditions to be covered include serious bed sores, objects left in patients’ bodies following surgery; blood incompatibility; air embolism; deep vein thrombosis/pulmonary embolism (formation/movement of a blood clot) following total knee and hip replacement; falls and trauma (such as burns and electric shock); and extreme blood sugar derangement.
For more information on the new CMS rules, see: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/HospitalAcqCond/06_Hospital-Acquired_Conditions.asp#T
Abridged
SOURCE: Senior Journal
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