WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- Medicare has stopped paying hospitals for the added costs of treating U.S. patients who are injured while undergoing covered procedures, officials said.
The United States' biggest insurer, which provides coverage for the elderly and disabled, says it has followed the lead of private insurers and will no longer cover so-called never procedures, meaning illnesses that never should have happened, such as when patients receive incompatible blood transfusions, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
Other such procedures include operations to retrieve sponges from earlier Medicare-covered operations, injuries sustained by patients from falls and catheter-induced urinary tract infections, the newspaper said.
The U.S. Congress mandated the Medicare move, which is expected to save $21 million per year. Medicare paid out a total of $110 billion on inpatient care in 2007, officials said.
