Are You At Risk For MRSA? - There are two main kinds of MRSA – hospital acquired and community acquired. The risk factors of the two strains differs somewhat.
Medicare Will No Longer Cover for Your Hospital’s Mistakes
Assessing Your Risk of MRSA - MRSA can often be found on people in hospitals and other healthcare facilities. Some patients have a higher risk factor for MRSA, including: patients...
Being a Pet Owner May Increase Your Risk of MRSA - There were already specific groups of people that were at a high risk for contracting the MRSA bacteria – mainly people who were staying in a long term...
The new rule is designed to improve the accuracy of Medicare’s payment for patients under the acute care hospital inpatient prospective payment system. It is also designed to encourage hospitals to improve their quality control.
This means that Medicare will not pay for major mistakes like surgical objects left in a patient after a surgery or a patient that receives the wrong blood type during a transfusion. But the area most impacted by the new rule will be in hospital acquired infections like MRSA. Infections like MRSA kill around 100,000 Americans each year, and another 2 million require treatment. The idea is that it will give hospitals a reason to use more caution in preventing these mistakes since they will be footing the bill themselves.
Can Essential Oils Help Your MRSA? - MRSA, often known as staph, is a type of bacteria that is naturally occurring on your skin and in your nose. If it remains there, it usually does not...
Every year, many people suffer because of infections and errors that could have been prevented. The new rules allow Medicare to use its power to encourage hospitals to keep their patients safe and improve their care.
At the moment, over half of the treatments for hospital acquired infections are paid by Medicare. A good portion of these infections could have been prevented with infection control procedures like proper hand washing between patients.
Community Acquired MRSA May Be Harder to Identify Than Hospital Strains - MRSA can be a serious problem for the children that contract it, since their immune systems are not as developed as those of adults. However, for children...
These new rules are able to be put in affect because of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. Under this Act, hospitals will have to start reporting these secondary infections and diagnoses starting October 1, 2007. This will start the change over, and as of the new financial year in 2009 Medicare will not pay for the treatment of these diagnoses unless they were present when the patient was admitted to the hospital.
Could Steam Be The Next MRSA Cure? - The super bug MRSA is proving harder and hard to kill. This antibiotic-resistant strain of staph is not vulnerable to many of the traditionally antibiotic...
There are certain conditions that will no longer be covered by Medicare. These include: mediastinitis after coronary artery bypass graft surgery, bed sores, air embolisms, falls, objects left in a patient after surgery, and different catheter-associated infections.
Another change due to the new rules will be the lists of publicly reported quality measures and the amount of payment Medicare will pay out for devices that the hospitals replace.
The new rules should improve the quality of care for hospital patients, and at the same time save taxpayers millions of dollars. Currently, Medicare pays over $400 billion dollars each year, and this number is expected to rise as the baby boomers continue to age.© Information Warehouse 2007
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