Medicare penalizes 758 hospitals for patient safety issues

Editor's Note

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on December 9 announced that 758 hospitals will have a 1% reduction in Medicare payments for missing targets for hospital-acquired conditions.

More than half (54%) of the hospitals were also penalized last year. Penalties are expected to total $364 million.

Among hospitals penalized for the first time are California’s Stanford Health Care, Denver Health Medical Center, and two hospitals run by the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, Kaiser Health News reports.

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The federal government is penalizing 758 hospitals with higher rates of patient safety incidents, and more than half of those places had also been fined last year, Medicare records released late Wednesday show.