Personal Injury Law

New Report: 1 in 7 Medicare Patients Victims of Harmful Care

By Steven M. Levin and John J. Perconti

The Watch Dog Blog recently posted an analysis of a new federal report on the quality of care received by Medicare patients. The results are sad and shocking. One in seven patients was found to have experienced harmful medical care while at a hospital. The consequences of that poor medical care were widespread?from extended hospital stays to death. In all cases, the complications cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

Specifically the report reveals that 1.5% of Medicare beneficiaries died as a result of mistakes in their medical care. In raw numbers, that total number of patients is shockingly large. Over 15,000 patients are killed each month in part because of those medical mistakes. Over 134,000 patients suffered a variety of non-fatal injuries because of error?from medication problems to treatment delays.

The cost of these errors is estimated to be $324 million per month in additional taxpayer bills. Over the course of a year these mistakes increase Medicare payments by an astounding $4.4 billion.

Medicare is the federal government health care assistance program for the elderly. The results of this particular study were culled from a U.S. Health & Human Services review of a national sample of 780 Medicare patients.

Full post as published by Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog on November 17, 2010 (boomark / email).