Medicare Says No Bread for Blunders

Medicare has announced that as of October 1, 2008 it will no longer reimburse hospitals for extra patient care costs brought about as the result of certain oversights and errors that Medicare deems preventable.

The tightening of the Medicare purse strings is, no doubt, bringing administrators disturbing visions of dollars sprouting wings and flying out of their hospitals’ coffers. Hospitals will not be allowed to charge the patient for the additional costs of treatment brought about by those errors, either.

On the do-not-pay list are urinary tract infections from catheters, bloodstream infections from using catheters, falls, pressure ulcers, objects left in a patient during surgery, transfusions of incompatible blood, air embolism and mediastinitis following heart surgery.

Given that the extra-care costs can add an additional $10,000 to $100,000 to a patient’s tab, hospital bigwigs will not be sitting idly by, hoping for the best. We won’t know for a while what changes will be in store for hospital personnel once administration decides on ways to staunch the hemorrhaging of money.

Obviously, there is already protocol in place that should keep most of these errors from occurring, but failure to follow that protocol, or the need for more effective safeguards, has resulted in too many oversights and errors.

How can this be fixed? What can be done that isn’t being done now? I wonder how it all will affect nurses? It seems it can only be a good thing for patients, as any steps taken (other than staff reduction, which would be counter-productive) will be directed toward patient safety. Nurses and other health care workers will certainly be asked to assist in revamping procedures and be held more accountable for safely carrying them out.

Let’s hope for wise and thoughtful decisions leading to safe and effective changes. We need to eradicate that oft-heard saying, “Hospitals are not safe places for sick people.” It goes without saying that we want our patients helped, not harmed. And, let’s face it, if new measures don’t work, hospitals will find ways to cover the lost Medicare revenues and that means that the costs of other services are then bound to climb even higher.