What it means to you: When the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced it would reduce reimbursements for 10 preventable injuries and infections acquired during a hospital stay, many of the nation’s largest private insurers followed suit. In an effort to improve patient safety and lower costs, companies such as Aetna, Wellpoint and Cigna have stopped reimbursements for a number of “never events,” including operating on a wrong limb or performing surgery on the wrong patient, and will no longer pay additional costs associated with other events including catheter-associated urinary tract infections, vascular catheter-associated infections and mediastinitis.

Wellpoint and Aetna, the nation’s first- and third-largest insurers respectively, considered a list of 28 “never events” compiled by the National Quality Forum (NQF), in addition to the CMS list, as a guide for what to include in their payment contracts. The NQF, a coalition of physicians, employers and policy makers, drafted the initial list in 2002 to increase public accountability. Today it serves as the basis for several states’ public reporting systems.

The scoop: Private insurers say “never events” are rare enough that they won’t add up to significant cost savings. In Minnesota, where hospitals are required to report such errors, 154 “never events” were reported last year out of nine million admissions. However, more common events, including many healthcare-associated infections, could mean bigger savings in the long run. Read more in this Wall Street Journal article.

Learn more: Click here to read a press release from Wellpoint announcing its intention to cease reimbursements for “never events.” Click here to read a release from Aetna on its plans to improve patient safety.