Check out this example:
When Kevin Baccam of Urbandale, Iowa, went in for hernia surgery in August 2005, he expected to come home with a scar on the right side of his groin.But the 33-year-old school district controller actually wound up with two scars in the delicate region - one on each side - after the surgeon mistakenly operated on the left and had to start over.
Nearly as painful, Baccam said, was when he opened his mail a few weeks later and saw his health insurance had been billed for both operations.
Still, that leaves 40 states - including Iowa - where patients can expect that they, or their insurance providers, still may be billed for errors that one association leader called "no-brainers.""There's no denying it if you've done surgery on the wrong person or the wrong body part. That's black and white," said Joseph M. Letnaunchyn, who heads the West Virginia Hospital Association.
Letnaunchyn expects his agency on March 6 to join the parade of states adopting voluntary no-payment policies. West Virginia's plan would cover eight of the most serious NQF errors, and include guidelines to help decide whether to pay for other mistakes, he said.
Only four states have agreed to waive fees for all "never events." Other states have agreed not to charge for eight, nine or 10 mistakes, or created their own lists based on NQF standards. In Delaware and Massachusetts, for instance, the short list of non-billable errors includes artificial insemination with the wrong donor sperm or donor egg. Pennsylvania's list adds "unexpected removal of an organ" and "unexpected amputation of a limb."
Who would be responsible for changing this? The article is unclear. It's possible that the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (on the web at www.vhha.com) would have to be the driving force behind this.
Of course, I'm sure some of our state legislators would be happy to take this up as well, if the VHHA doesn't act or if it's not up to them.
Hope this helps alert people to an egregious problem in our health care system.