New Medicare Regulations Adopted To Reduce Certain Hospital Infections And Medical Errors

Under new Medicare regulations, hospitals will no longer receive higher payments for the additional costs associated with treating patients for certain hospital- acquired infections and medical errors. The new rules will give hospitals a powerful new incentive to improve patient care, according to Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports.

1. Hospitals will be better able to work with their medical staffs on "putting teeth" into infection control and other important committees- not unlike the impetus to manage inpatient days that resulted from DRG payment in the 80's 2. After all the cacophony of complaints about how to define nosocomial (hospital-acquired) infection, who is responsible for errors that occur in the hospital, etc., the...

The current RBRVS pre-payment system to hospitals currently rewards hospitals for those patients who suffer a hospital induced infection, injury, or other illness that elevates their acuity and ultimately payment from Medicare.  Only a payment for services system that pays for excellence and a lowering of the rate of harmful nosocomial events can focus money and expert attention to these issues....

With hospital-acquired infections held to be a leading cause of US deaths each year it may be a good idea to create an incentive rather than a punishment, to remedy the problem. Medicare patients are generally the more frail population and require competent, quality care. Policy makers may be unwittingly putting a large number of the US population at health risk by refusing hospital reimbursement...

CMS is doing right thing. This will aviod pt fall and bedsore during hospitalzation

Impact on hospital's profitability wound be profound. Implementation however would be a challenge. The primary purpose is shifting the health care cost to private sector.

Hospitals will be unfairly squeezed yet again making it more difficult to solve important problems. Infection Control, in particular, takes money to run and run well. Paying hospitals less money will result in less available for this important work. Has anyone thought about the implications of giving hospitals less compensation for medical care provided within their systems?

I published an article this month (Aug 07) in the Lancet Infectious Diseases which argues for government reimburement for infection control in hospitals and other clinical settings.  Kevin Outterson

This article presents the new CMS guidelines that deny higher payments for the additional costs associated with treating patients for certain hospital - acquired infections and medical errors. While these are laudable goals, to assume that all infections are the result of poor medical practice is an oversimplification. The development of nosocomial infections also has to do with the patients disease...

If a patient gets a bedsore, who pays for it? Most importantly, what does this mean to KCI and the other wound companies? Where will it end?

The new Medicare guidelines -- which restrict reimbursement for cases in which "preventable" complications occur -- does not distinguish between what is a truly "preventable error" and what is a more or less accepted rate of complication for somewhat risky procedures.  The fact that doctors and hospitals will be asked to shoulder the burden of these financial punishments may result in three trends:...

CMS's latests decision to not reimburse hospitals for medical errors and hospital acquired infections has been widely discussed on these newsgroups.   Simpy put, while medical errors and infections are unfortunate and can have adverse consequences, the key here is which of these events could have been preventable.   Cutting reimbursements to hospitals for some infections...

The article is a welcoming news for patients to get high quality hospital care and precision in treatment, especially when the new regulation will come into force in October, 2008. Increasing hospital acquired infection and a leading cause of death in the United States has been addressed in this rule by the CMS. The news will empower patients to seek good hospital care and also to make an...

The new Medicare regulations are not based in science as there is no proven clear cut medical way to eliminate the incidence of these "so-called" medical errors. It would be a dream to believe that some intervention today can eliminate the occurrence of infections in hospitals or patient falls.  Just as it would be a dream to hold state toopers responsible for eliminating car accidents.

1.  Lowering payments to hospitals will only decrease access for Medicare recipients. 2.  This effort is not about improving the quality of care its more about paying less for the services medicine provides.