Medicare plan: Stop paying for hospital complications -- Automatic malpractice??
The denial process will alert patients to the fact that their condition resulted from hospital error, and can be expected to increase malpractice claims for such complications and create a legal argument that these issues are automatically malpractice.
Published May 30, 2007
Medicare has issued a proposal that will stop paying for avoidable hospital associated complications , and with it, major private insurance companies are expected to follow the lead and cut out payments for this common and expensive complications. The denial process will alert patients to the fact that their condition resulted from hospital error, and can be expected to increase malpractice claims for such complications and create a legal argument that these issues are automatically malpractice.
The issues targetted by the plan include:
1. Catheter-associated urinary tract infections.
2. Bed sores.
3. Objects left in after surgery.
4. Air embolism, or bubbles, in bloodstream from injection.
5. Patients given incompatible blood type.
6. Bloodstream staph infection.
7. Ventilator-associated pneumonia.
8. Vascular-catheter-associated infection.
9. Clostridium difficile-associated disease (gastrointestinal infections).
10. Drug-resistant staph infection.
11. Surgical site infections.
12. Wrong surgery.
13. FallsThe proposed regulations are open for comment and are planned to take effect in October 2008.
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