New York's Medicaid program has decided to stop reimbursing for avoidable hospital complications and medical errors it considers to be "never events." Starting in October, it won't pay for care related to 14 conditions, including wrong-site surgery; foreign objects left in the body; medication errors; blood incompatibility; contaminated drugs and patient disability from electric shock. Hospitals that want to receive Medicaid payments will have to prove that such conditions were present on admission to get paid for treating them. Meanwhile, the state expects to keep expanding this list.
To learn more about New York's decision:
- read this Modern Healthcare report (reg. req.)
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