Teaching hospitals penalized for aggressive screening

Editor's Note

Nearly half of US academic medical centers are being penalized by Medicare because their aggressive screening of patients leads to identification of more infections and other complications that trigger penalties, the April 20 Kaiser Health News reports.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) maintains that the penalties, which were created by the Affordable Care Act, are leading to improvements at teaching hospitals, but the Association of American Medical Colleges says the fines are harmful to hospitals that care for the sickest patients.

CMS is reducing a year’s worth of Medicare payments to 758 hospitals.

CHICAGO - The puffiness along Carol Ascher's left leg seemed like normal swelling, probably from the high dose of chemotherapy Dr. Karl Bilimoria had injected the previous day. But it could have been a blood clot. He quickly ordered an ultrasound. "We were just being abundantly cautious," he said.