What it means to you:  Fed up with the number of “never events”—preventable medical errors that result in serious, life-threatening consequences for patients—the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will no longer pay for 10 types of conditions as of Oct. 1. Although doctors and other medical professionals will continue to get paid for the work they do to treat the conditions that arise from these mistakes, hospitals won’t. That means hospitals have two choices: pay for the mistakes themselves, or stop making them. In either case, the new rule is already affecting policies and procedures for healthcare practitioners and executives. Visit FirstDoNoHarm.com to make sure your hospital is prepared.

The scoop:  

In the Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) final rule, CMS expanded its original list of eight to include two additional categories and extended a proposed surgical infection category. CMS originally proposed up to 17 conditions and 22 items in the rule—including ventilator-associated pneumonia—but public criticism encouraged the agency to scale back. Now the list includes:

• Stage III, IV pressure ulcers
• Fall or trauma resulting in serious injury
• Vascular catheter-associated infection
• Catheter-associated urinary tract infection
• Foreign object retained after surgery
• Certain surgical site infections
• Air embolism
• Blood incompatibility
• Certain manifestations of poor blood sugar control
• Certain deep vein thromboses or pulmonary embolisms

Learn more:  Some physicians are concerned that high-risk patients might face discrimination. Read about the risk factor, here.

Read APIC’s statement on the CMS ruling, and learn more about an upcoming conference, “Mastering the New CMS Regulation: Implications for Infection Prevention & Control,” here.