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Mass., New York join trend on no pay for "never events"

NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Aug. 11, 2008

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Officials in Massachusetts and New York in June became the latest to announce plans to end payment to hospitals for the National Quality Forum's 28 "never events," incidents that kill or seriously injure patients.

The Massachusetts policy applies to the 1.6 million patients covered by the state Medicaid program, Group Insurance Commission, Dept. of Correction and Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority. In January, 61 hospitals said they would stop billing payers for these events.

New York's Medicaid program, meanwhile, in October will stop paying for 14 of the 28 NQF-designated events, including air embolism, blood incompatibility and patient disability from use of contaminated drugs.

Pennsylvania's Medicaid program also adopted a no-pay policy in February, and many private health insurers have announced similar plans.

Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/08/11/prbf0811.htm.

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