Medicare Will Not Pay For Preventable Errors

This is a MONUMENTAL policy change that has received very little coverage. Why is this policy so profound? It will effect the profitability of EVERY hospital, nursing home and other long term care facility in the nation. Practically all errors are preventable. And although the aim of this new policy is to push the hospitals and long term care facilities toward more stringent adherence of current protocols and thereby reduce the number of "preventable errors," it will also drive costs through the roof for these facilities.

Medicare pays flat fees for particular treatments. Therefore, the additional testing (that will no doubt occur under this new policy) upon admission to the hospital will have to absorbed by the hospital. To avoid these additional expenses, I foresee hospitals beginning to over prescribe antibiotics in order to avoid having patients become ill with bacterial infections while in the hospital. That is only the beginning. The new guidelines could also encourage the health care facilities to falsely evaluate a patient as having more medical problems than actually exist. For example, as a precautionary measure, a blister may be documented as a "skin tear" or other type of wound in order to help the facility recoup the need for testing, additional staffing, and more extensive medical treatments that will be required because of the new guidelines.

Coding is everything when it comes to billing Medicare, and I am certain that employees of healthcare facilities will soon be receiving invitations to seminars on how to deal with the new Medicare guidelines and stay profitable. If you think there is "creative accounting" happening on Wall Street, it is nothing compared to what is an absolute necessity in the healthcare industry in order for a hospital or long term care facility to stay afloat. What this guideline will do to those facilities and the patients within them is a crime and its being perpetrated once again by George W. Bush, Richard B. Cheney, Karl un-Christian Rove, and the rest of the current administration.

Top News- Misdiagnosed Man Spends Life Savings - AOL News

Top News- Misdiagnosed Man Spends Life Savings - AOL News

Does this man deserve compensation from the doctors and hospital that misdiagnosed him with pancreatic cancer? Because of the diagnosis, John Brandrick, 62, decided to sell all of his possessions, including his car and even his clothing to live his remaining days in style. However, Brandrick did not have cancer. He had something called pancreatitis, a curable ailment. The first question that came to my mind was, "Is a biopsy not performed to determine the presence pancreatic cancer?" If so, how could they come to him with a diagnosis of cancer if the biopsy did not show it? The hospital says that after reviewing the case, they would not have made any different diagnosis at the time based on the same evidence. If so, how did they eventually come to the second and correct diagnosis?

Now, let us suppose that the hospital did all of the necessary testing and procedures necessary to make a proper diagnosis, and all of the signs did indeed say "pancreatic cancer." Was it the hospital's fault that Mr. Brandrick decided to live the "high life" for his remaining days? I would say, "No." Mr. Brandrick would have made that decision based on the best information available at the time. The hospital could not be held liable if a miracle had taken place and Mr. Brandrick was now destitute. That apparently is not what happened here.

I believe a full investigation into all of Mr. Brandrick's records relating to this case should be reviewed by an independent medical panel to determine if the proper procedures were followed and the proper diagnosis made from the information obtained from those procedures. If the proper procedures were performed, Mr. Brandrick has no legal footing. However, if the hospital did not do what was necessary to make a proper diagnosis, they should be held liable for Mr. Brandrick's financial loss. No one is going to make the same decisions believing they have only months to live as they would believing that they will eventually recover from their illness.