Hospitals Profit From Surgical Errors, Study Finds

[azurnoir]

Hospitals make money from their own mistakes because insurers pay them for the longer stays and extra care that patients need to treat surgical complications that could have been prevented, a new study finds.

Changing the payment system, to stop rewarding poor care, may help to bring down surgical complication rates, the researchers say. If the system does not change, hospitals have little incentive to improve: in fact, some will wind up losing money if they take better care of patients.

The study and an editorial were published Tuesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association. The study authors are from the Boston Consulting Group, Harvard’s schools of medicine and public health, and Texas Health Resources, a large nonprofit hospital system.

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The median length of stay for those patients quadrupled to 14 days, and hospital revenue averaged $30,500 more than for patients without complications ($49,400 versus $18,900). Private insurers paid far more for complications than did Medicare or Medicaid, or patients who paid out of pocket.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/health/hospitals-profit-from-surgical-errors-study-finds.html

[cvoogt]

1. Truly disgusting numbers

Funny how private insurers pay more for the same thing. Because to set caps on typical costs would be socialism, or something (?). In the richest nation, a hospital stay should not amount to what for many people is a year's salary. Even if your insurer (if you have one) winds up footing the bill. That money could have been put to better use elsewhere in our economy.

[SoCalDem]

2. Our oldest went in for a routine kidney scan

He TOLD them he was allergic to a particular dye.. They used it anyway, and he ended up in intensive care for a week..