Medicare will not pay if hospital errs ...

Medicare will not pay if hospital errs ...

Note from Health Lover, Ilena Rosenthal:
* ilenarose.blogspot . com
A seemingly good idea with some very serious downsides!

Patients could be left ill or injured and not cared for ...

Caution!

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Medicare will not pay if hospital errs

February 19, 2008



WASHINGTON - It's a new way to push for patient safety: Don't pay
hospitals for their errors.

Beginning Oct. 1, Medicare no longer will cover extra-care costs for
eight preventable hospital errors. Nor can hospitals bill the injured
patient for those extra costs.

"Money talks," says Dr. Steven Gordon, infectious disease chief at the
Cleveland Clinic Foundation. "Every hospital CFO, this gets their
attention."

- - -

Medicare's targets

*Urinary tract infections from catheters

*Bloodstream infections from using catheters

*Falls

*Bed sores, or pressure ulcers

*Objects left in a patient during surgery

*Blood incompatibility, giving a dangerously wrong blood type

*An infection after heart surgery called mediastinitis

*Air embolism, an air bubble in a blood vessel

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Page compiled from Tribune reporter Jon Hilkevitch and Tribune news
services