The day of reckoning is here. WhiteCoat has written about this program before, and how he predicts that the flawed initiative is rife with unintended consequences that will be to the patient’s detriment.
The main argument is that hospitals will significantly increase testing to preemptively document that a “never” condition was present prior to hospital admission:
CMS won’t pay for never events if they develop in a hospital, but they will pay for treatment if you present with a pre-existing never event.
Paradoxically, this move to not pay for “never” events may actually raise health care costs, worsening Medicare’s already dire fiscal predicament.
