Friday, June 3, 2011

Medicaid No Longer Paying for Mistakes

In effort to encourage medical professionals to eliminate needless mistakes, Medicaid has announced it will no longer pay hospitals or doctors for certain preventable illnesses and injuries.  Medicaid is the joint state-federal health plan for the poor.  So far, 21 states already refuse to pay when health care providers make these mistakes under a 2010 health care law that made it a federal policy.  Other states have until July of next year to put the new policy into effect.

Conditions and illnesses now no longer eligible for reimbursement include: foreign object retained after surgery, air embolism, blood incompatibility, severe bedsores, falls in the hospital that break bones, infections from having a catheter inserted, certain conditions from uncontrolled diabetes and surgical site infections.

Medicare, the federal health-insurance plan for the elderly, already has a similar policy.

Messa & Associates has been involved in numerous cases where medical errors result in illness and catastrophic injury.  Our attorneys have obtained fair verdicts and settlements for our clients in dozens of these cases getting clients the compensation they deserve for injury, trauma, loss, suffering and any ongoing needs that may result.  If you or a loved one has suffered illness or injury due to preventable medical error, please contact us at 1-877-MessaLaw.

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