Not Good News

[xoxoxoBruce]

The News Medical website reports a study by Harvard Medical School found, the "Occurrence of postsurgical complications associated with higher hospital profit-margins".

Excuse me, if you fuck up you make more money? Not good news.

"The rate of inpatient surgical complications is significant, with estimates ranging from 3 percent to 17.4 percent, depending on type of procedure, type of complications, length of follow-up, and data analyzed. In addition to patient harm, major complications add substantial costs, previously estimated at $11,500 per patient.

Effective methods for reducing surgical complications have been identified. However, hospitals have been slow to implement them," according to background information in the article. The authors write that there may be several factors for slow implementation.

Reductions in surgical complication rates "can reduce revenues under per diem reimbursement schemes and even diagnosis related group-based reimbursement because complications can result in severity adjustments or diagnosis related group changes that increase revenues. … Previous estimates suggest that reducing surgical complications could harm hospital financial results but have been limited by use of small data sets or simplified surrogates such as patient length of stay."

Good lord, we know from a number of recent articles the MBAs have taken over the hospitals. With this information, although they probably already knew it, they'll be ordering staff to stop washing their hands.