Study finds medical payment system rewarding poor care may be increasing surgical complication rates

[Emily]

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/health/hospitals-profit-from-surgical-errors-study-finds.html?_r=0

Hospitals Profit From Surgical Errors, Study Finds
By DENISE GRADY
Published: April 16, 2013

Hospitals make money from their own mistakes because insurers pay them for the longer stays and extra care that patients need to treat surgical complications that could have been prevented, a new study finds.

Changing the payment system, to stop rewarding poor care, may help to bring down surgical complication rates, the researchers say. If the system does not change, hospitals have little incentive to improve: in fact, some will wind up losing money if they take better care of patients...

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1679400

Original Contribution | April 17, 2013
Relationship Between Occurrence of Surgical Complications and Hospital Finances
Sunil Eappen, MD; Bennett H. Lane, MS; Barry Rosenberg, MD, MBA; Stuart A. Lipsitz, ScD; David Sadoff, BA; Dave Matheson, JD, MBA; William R. Berry, MD, MPA, MPH; Mark Lester, MD, MBA; Atul A. Gawande, MD, MPH
JAMA. 2013;309(15):1599-1606. doi:10.1001/jama.2013.2773