Insurance Companies, Hospitals, and Never Events – Who Should Pay?
that could have been prevented by proper care would be considered ‘never events’. The strange thing about ‘never events’ is that, until recently, the patient and/or insurer has always had to pay for the treatment that is needed to fix the results of this event that should never have happened while under the already uber-expensive care of the hospital. Hospitals are now under pressure from government and health insurers to cover the expenses of their own mistakes. Medicare has gone so far as to decide that as of October 2008, it will no longer cover the hospital bills that are the result of hospital errors that include eight ‘never events’. Some of these ‘never events’ include three different types of hospital-acquired infections, falls that occur while a patient is under a hospital’s care, and the surgery needed to remove an object that is left inside the patient during surgery. Many insurers are now looking into following that lead, and many hospitals are now waiving fees that are inc
