Want High-Quality Universal Health Coverage? Fix Medicare First and Use It as a Model
By Maggie Mahar, Health Beat
Posted on August 2, 2008, Printed on August 3, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/93357/
This article originally appeared on Health Beat.
Thanks to the unbridled rise in health care prices, Medicare is going broke. As I mentioned in a recent post, four years ago the Medicare trust fund that pays for hospital stays started to run out of money. In 2004 the fund began paying out more than it takes in through payroll taxes.
"Since then, the balance in the fund, combined with interest income on that balance, has kept the fund solvent. But in just 11 years, it will be exhausted," the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPac) reported in March. "Revenues from payroll taxes collected in that year will cover only 79 percent of projected benefit expenditures." And each year after 2019, the shortfall will grow larger.
posted by Dictynna @ 6:57 AM
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1 Comments:
Beginning October 1, Medicare will no longer pay hospitals for care provided to resolve hospital acquired conditions. This has the potential to significantly reduce medicare expenditures and hosptial revenues.
For example, vascular catheter associated infection represents a major area of impact. A significant number of patients rely on vascular access devices, like PICC lines, to deliver needed medication. The line has to be placed and maintained in a specific manner, or it has a potential to cause a catheter-related bloodstream infection (CRBSI.) CRBSI, along with ventilator-associated pneumonia (which CMS is considering adding to the “selected conditions” list for FY2009), are the two most costly infections to treat.
Analysis in one Midwestern hospital identified that the average cost to treat a CRBSI was $91,000, whereas the average reimbursement was about $67,000 – an operational loss of $24,000. As of Oct. 1, 2008, reimbursement will be zero. The CDC estimates 250,000 central line-associated infections occur in the United States annually, with an attributable mortality rate of 12 to 25 percent.
This change in reimbursement methodology will create a significant incentive for hospitals to improve quality management.
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