Re: Medicare Says It Won't Cover Hospital Errors

From: art fougner, md (evsono@pipeline.com)
Sun Aug 26 12:03:33 2007


Marilyn

the devil's truly in the details ... the baby surely doesn't want to be washed as the bathwater is being tossed. Ultimately, someone will pay the cost or the hospital will close its doors.

Art

At Sat, 25 Aug 2007, Marilyn Ringstaff wrote: >
><< I read an article this morning that stated this program will save
>Medicare $20 Million a year. The Medicare budget is $400 BILLION. That
>means that medical errors cost 0.005% of the entire budget. (and the
>auditors they hire to find the istakes will probably cost more than $20
>mil. I'm wondering if there is any other industry where errors account
>for that small a fraction of the total expenditures, and will this
>program save money or just drive more hospitals into bankruptcy?>>
>
>Anna- there is a list of ‘never events’ that Medicare is going to stop
>reimbursing hospitals for, I think the regulations are coming out in a
>day or two. This by no means addresses all medical errors- the ARHQ
>estimates that medical errors cost $37.6 billion each year; about $17
>billion of those costs are associated with preventable errors. The CMS
>press release about it is at
>http://www.cms.hhs.gov/apps/media/press/release.asp?Counter=1863
>
>I think the new program is aimed at reducing mistakes like this- the
>THIRD wrong site surgery for this neurosurgery unit in six years:
>Patient dies after surgeon operates on wrong side of head
>August 24, 2007
>
>http://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2007/08/24/patient_dies_after_surgeon_operates_on_wrong_side_of_head/
>
>Marilyn
>
>--
>Marilyn Ringstaff, CNM, JD
>Rome, Georgia
>

--
art fougner, md
"May The Wings of Liberty Never Lose a Feather." - Jack Burton




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