EDITORIAL: Medicare stops pay for harmful care: Connecticut still pays for treatment mistakes that should never happen.

Oct 05, 2008 (New Haven Register - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- CI | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- The perverse practice of paying hospitals and doctors for incompetent care is coming to an end. As of this month, Medicare will no longer pay for treatment of 10 easily preventable conditions caused by lapses in care. Among the bills that Medicare will reject are those for severe bed sores, objects left in a patient after surgery, transfusions of the wrong blood type, falls, and catheter-related vascular and urinary tract infections. The new policy also bars billing patients directly for these mistakes.

The Medicare policy is the latest in a push to reduce treatment errors that a 1999 study estimated kill 44,000 to 100,000 Americans each year. As a result, hospitals are putting far more emphasis on safety, including obvious but sometimes neglected measures, such as hand washing to prevent the spread of infection. Encouraged by bonus payments, hospitals are now reporting their compliance rates with basic treatment procedures that are known to save lives and improve care.

There is expected to be a savings from the change in the Medicare payment rule. But, its real importance is setting an example that encourages even safer treatment procedures that will cut the number of avoidable errors.

New York and three other states will not pay Medicaid claims for what they consider avoidable medical errors. Doctors in some states have agreed not to bill for medical mistakes. Insurers -- including Aetna, Cigna and WellPoint -- will not pay claims for treatment of medical mistakes considered easily avoidable.

Connecticut's Medicaid program pays the bills for treatment of medical and hospital mistakes that should never occur.

While hospitals report these avoidable mistakes to the Department of Public Health, the information should be passed on to the state Department of Social Services, Medicaid's administrator. With a change in state law, the department could stop paying hospitals and doctors for easily avoidable mistakes that harm Medicaid patients. The change would reinforce the federal government's push for greater patient safety.

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