In their paper (Sep/Oct 06), Chunliu Zhan and colleagues address a critical issue: Do hospitals make or lose money on adverse events? Their study asserts that "extra payments cover less than a third of the extra costs incurred by hospitals in treating these adverse events," which leads them to claim that both hospitals and Medicare will gain financially by eliminating the adverse events. The methodology, however, likely underestimates the extra payments associated with preventable adverse events. Not only can the adverse event itself affect the diagnosis-related group (DRG) and payment; other complications caused by the adverse event can affect it, too.
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