Kentucky Medical Malpractice Attorneys: Medicare won't pay for hospital errors
In a fascinating change of policy, Medicare announced last week that it will not cover medical care for injuries resulting from medical errors. In other words, medical malpractice. This raises a host of serious questions for doctors, hospitals, injured patients and their lawyers. Will Kentucky medical malpractice attorneys be able to use this to their client's advantage? Or will it complicate matters?
Download the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services press release or visit the website for more information.
Medicare Says It Won’t Cover Hospital Errors
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: August 19, 2007
WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 — In a significant policy change, Bush administration officials say that Medicare will no longer pay the extra costs of treating preventable errors, injuries and infections that occur in hospitals, a move they say could save lives and millions of dollars.
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Eileen O’Neill-Pardo’s mother, Margaret, died after an infection developed at a hospital.
Private insurers are considering similar changes, which they said could multiply the savings and benefits for patients.
Under the new rules, to be published next week, Medicare will not pay hospitals for the costs of treating certain “conditions that could reasonably have been prevented.”
Among the conditions that will be affected are bedsores, or pressure ulcers; injuries caused by falls; and infections resulting from the prolonged use of catheters in blood vessels or the bladder.
In addition, Medicare says it will not pay for the treatment of “serious preventable events” like leaving a sponge or other object in a patient during surgery and providing a patient with incompatible blood or blood products.
“If a patient goes into the hospital with pneumonia, we don’t want them to leave with a broken arm,” said Herb B. Kuhn, acting deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The new policy — one of several federal initiatives to improve care purchased by Medicare, at a cost of more than $400 billion a year — is sending ripples through the health industry.
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