Medicare no longer paying hospitals for preventable errors

Medicare expects to save $21 million a year after implementing new rules that will end reimbursement to hospitals for additional care needed as a result of preventable errors (Source:  "Medicare, insurers to stick hospitals with bad care's cost,” Toledo Blade, Oct. 1, 2008).

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has announced 10 areas, such as bed sores, patient falls or leaving sponges in a patient after surgery, in which treatment will not be reimbursed.

"The least expensive way to deliver health care is to do it perfectly right and to do it once," said Dr. Jeffrey Gold, dean of the University of Toledo's college of medicine and executive vice president and provost for health affairs.

However, Wall Street Journal reporter Jacob Goldstein questions the impact the new rules will have on quality of care (Source: “Medicare’s No-Pay Rule Is Small Potatoes for Hospitals’ Bottom Line,” Wall Street Journal, Sept. 30, 2008). He points out that the $21 million cut by the rule represents less than 0.1 percent of the $100 billion Medicare pays to hospitals annually.

“Under the current system, payments for the conditions on the list only come into play for plain-vanilla patients whose care becomes more complicated as a result of the complications,” Goldstein wrote. “But many Medicare patients are not plain vanilla.”