Medicaid no longer paying for hospital mistakes

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a final rule designed to end payments for a list of specific health care-acquired conditions, sometimes called "never events."  

National Journal: Could It Have Been Prevented? If So, Medicaid Won't Pay
Left a sponge inside the patient? Transfused the wrong blood type? Don't look for the federal government to pay for fixing the mistake. Medicaid will no longer pay hospitals or doctors for certain preventable illnesses and injuries, such as operating on the wrong body part, the Health and Human Services Department said Wednesday. "These steps will encourage health professionals and hospitals to reduce preventable infections, and eliminate serious medical errors," Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Donald Berwick said in a statement (Fox, 6/1). 

Kaiser Health News: Medicaid To Stop Paying For Hospital Mistakes
Kaiser Health News staff writer Phil Galewitz reports: "Medicaid will stop paying for about two dozen 'never events' in hospitals, such as operations on the wrong body part and certain surgical-site infections, federal officials said today" (Galewitz, 6/1).

Modern Healthcare: CMS Issues Final Rule Ending Medicaid Payments For HACs
The CMS issued its final rule ending federal Medicaid payments for a list of specified healthcare-acquired conditions, such as late-stage pressure ulcers and foreign objects retained after surgery. Twenty-one states already have some form of nonpayment policy for preventable healthcare-acquired conditions, and many of them use Medicare's current list of HACs, according to the rule. But other states' HAC lists differ from the one used by the Medicare program (McKinney, 6/1).