Medicare cutting hospital payments
Infections, other safety issues cited
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Medicare is cutting payments to about a dozen hospitals in Western Pennsylvania in the coming year for excessive infections and other patient safety issues, including five Allegheny Health Network facilities in the Pittsburgh area.
Of Allegheny Health Network facilities, Allegheny General, Allegheny Valley, Forbes, Jefferson and West Penn hospitals were among those cited for having too many catheter-related urinary tract and surgical infections from hysterectomy and colon operations, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees Medicare.
UPMC’s Presbyterian, St. Margaret and Altoona hospitals also will see Medicare reimbursement cuts in the coming year for patient safety penalties.
Officials at AHN and Excela Health both faulted the timeliness of the Medicare data.
“This set of scores reflects a time frame that is now several years old, not real time,” wrote Denise Addis, director of valuebased quality at Excela Health, which was cited by Medicare for its operation of Excela Health Frick Hospital in Westmoreland County. She was referring to Medicare’s July 2015 to December 2016 evaluation period. “When the survey population is small, as it was during this time frame, even a few infections can skew the ratio, and even a few is too many.”
The hospital has since implemented an “aggressive antibiotic stewardship program.”
Sam Reynolds, AHN chief quality officer, also faulted the time frame of the Medicare data, saying more recent internal metrics reflect significant improvement in patient safety.
“We’re looking at old data here,” Dr. Reynolds said. “We have seen significant improvement in our performance in the last two years. Internally, we’re tracking some very significant improvements.”
A UPMC spokeswoman on Tuesday declined to comment on the issue. Heritage Valley Health System, which operates the Sewickley hospital cited by Medicare, did not return a call.
Other factors considered in reducing Medicare reimbursement included the frequency of