Common hospital-acquired infection rarely reported in the dataset used to implement hospital penalties
Wednesday, September 5, 2012 - 12:04
in Health & Medicine
Aiming to cut expenses and improve care, a 2008 Medicare policy stopped paying hospitals extra to treat some preventable, hospital-acquired conditions -- including urinary tract infections (UTIs) in patients after bladder catheters are placed. But a statewide Michigan analysis shows there was very little change in hospital payment due to removing pay for hospital-acquired catheter-associated UTIs. For all adult hospital stays in Michigan in 2009, eliminating payment for this infection decreased hospital pay for only 25 hospital stays (0.003 percent of all stays). This is in great contrast to the large savings anticipated, given that this condition accounts for nearly one third of all hospital-acquired infections.