Never and always.  I believe along the path of life, my parents, family, teachers or events in general taught me to try and avoid those words. While the CMS policy is laudable in many ways, and certainly focusing on preventable errors is something upon which we can all agree, the payment policy associated with this may be misguided.  There is NO WAY to prevent all complications of hospitalization.  In fact, any doctor or surgeon worth his or her salt will tell you that avoidance of the hospital is beneficial to your health, UNLESS you NEED to be there for a more pressing health condition.  The projected savings of this pronouncement are miniscule in comparison to the federal expenditures on health care.   Still, seat of their pants non-provider bureaucrats in DC feel that this will show the public the seriousness of their intent on reining in costs.  There are better ways to spend federal dollars and better methods to increase the quality of care at hospitals, than by adopting another “score card / report card” mentality based approach . . . jomaxx

Hospitals will no longer get paid for some specific treatment errors . . . CMS . . . including infections, bed sores and objects left inside patients after surgery, under a new Medicare policy

Hospital professionals say the government is setting an impossible standard . . . AHA

Hospitals will no longer get paid for some specific treatment errors, including infections, bed sores, and objects left inside patients after surgery, under a new Medicare policy that went into effect Oct. 1. The move may save the government an estimated $21 million annually by not paying for…follow-up procedures to correct complications from the hospital hall of horrors. Notably, that’s a drop in the catheter, compared with the $110 billion in payments Medicare makes to hospitals each year. But hospital professionals say the government is setting an impossible standard.  Nancy Foster, of the American Hospital Association, said that there are items on the list that ‘we don’t know how to make never happen, including bed sores and falls, which are tough to prevent when a frail patient might already have skin problems, or a patient doesn’t call a nurse for help moving and then falls.  Still officials say the payoff will be in improving the standard of care, focusing hospitals on prevention, and saving patients the pain of unnecessary treatment.

Regulators at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told about 3,500 U.S. hospitals that as of Oct. 1, they won’t be reimbursed for such so-called “never events” that patients should never acquire during a hospital stay. The dozen treatment areas on the list are considered “reasonably preventable” and aren’t present when a patient checks in.

In an Aug. 19 final rule, the government estimated that some $21 million would be saved annually by not paying for 500,000 follow-up procedures to correct complications from the hospital hall of horrors. That’s a drop in the catheter compared with the $110 billion in payments Medicare makes to hospitals each year.

Read more @ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/20/AR2008102002772_pf.html