And the squeeze against patients continues.....
[hr style="width: 100%; height: 2px;"]Medicare Won't Cover Hospital Mistakes
Starting next year, if a surgeon leaves an instrument inside a patient, Medicare won't cover the cost of fixing that mistake. [/p] Under new rules issued in the beginning of August, Medicare will no longer pay for the costs of what it considers "preventable" conditions acquired in the hospital. These include everything from certain types of hospital-acquired infections, to patients who are given transfusions with the wrong blood type, to bed sores.[/p] Instead, the hospitals themselves will have to cover these costs (since the rules also prevent them from billing the patient). [/p] Consumer advocates believe the change will give hospitals a much stronger incentive to try to prevent those mistakes in the first place. [/p][a href="http://www.abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=3499053"]http://www.abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=3499053[/a]
[hr style="width: 100%; height: 2px;"]
I seriously doubt that "consumer advocates" consider this a good thing, and I bet that the hospitals find a way to bill the patient no matter what the rules say.