Mistakes prompt Medicare cuts at 12 Miss. hospitals

Twelve hospitals in Mississippi are among 721 nationwide that will see their Medicare payments cut due to high rates of potentially avoidable mistakes.

Medicare is penalizing the hospitals based on their number of what is called “hospital-acquired conditions,” or maladies a patient contracted while either admitted to or being treated at a hospital for a separate condition.

Among the conditions Medicare measures are bloodstream infections triggered by tubes inserted into a large vein, usually to deliver medicine or another kind of treatment quickly. The Centers for Disease Control estimate 31,000 people get the infection every year. The agency estimates the infection causes thousands of deaths per year.

The other hospital acquired condition Medicare measures include urinary tract infections associated with the use of catheters. Also factored are serious complications based on certain injuries like blood clots, bed sores and falls.

The affected hospitals will have their Medicare payments cut by 1 percent for the federal fiscal year that ends in September.

“Over the two years since the time (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) data was collected to assign current penalty scores, we have been hard at work establishing practices and procedures that are reducing the risk of hospital acquired conditions in our institution,” said Dr. Charles O’Mara, UMMC’s associate vice chancellor for clinical affairs. “We still have lots of work to do, and we have committed to the never-ending process of continual improvement. We want to avoid financial penalties imposed by current CMS reimbursement rules, but much more importantly we want to provide the best possible health care for Mississippians.”

The 12 penalized in Mississippi represent 19 percent of the total hospitals in the state. That’s higher than bordering states Alabama (13 percent), Arkansas (18 percent), Louisiana (12 percent) and Tennessee (15 percent). Nevada’s 38 percent of hospitals penalized was the highest for a state. Washington D.C. saw 71 percent of its hospitals affected.

Contact Clay Chandler at (601) 961-7264 or cchandler@jackson.gannett.com. Follow @claychand on Twitter.

Mississippi hospitals that incurred Medicare payment cut:

Jeff Anderson Regional Medical Center South Campus, Meridian

Baptist Memorial Hospital DeSoto, Southaven

Bolivar Medical Center, Cleveland

Choctaw Health Center, Philadelphia

Crossgates River Oaks Hospital, Brandon

Delta Regional Medical Center, Greenville

Garden Park Medical Center, Gulfport

Highland Community Hospital, Picayune

Jasper General Hospital, Bay Springs

Oktibbeha Regional Medical Center, Starkville

South Central Regional Medical Center, Laurel

University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson

Source: Kaiser Family Foundation