Aetna is incorporating language on serious medical errors into its hospital contracts, including no longer paying for so-called “never events.”
Included in Aetna’s template hospital contracts for new negotiations and renegotiations are the Leapfrog Group’s policies on never events. These are 28 medical errors identified by the National Quality Forum that are so egregious to patient safety that they should never happen, such as operating on the wrong body part, leaving a foreign object inside a patient after surgery or a patient death or disability associated with a fall.
Aetna’s template contract calls on hospitals to report never events to an accrediting agency within 10 days, such as the Joint Commission or state health agency. Hospitals are also asked to take steps to ensure the error won’t be repeated, waive all costs related to the event and apologize to the affected patient and family members. Aetna says it is the first health plan to endorse the Leapfrog Group’s approach to never events. Since the CMS announced last fall it would halt reimbursements for some never events, payers such as the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association have said they will follow suit.
“More than 600 hospitals across the country already have agreed to report these events voluntarily,” Troyen Brennan, Aetna’s chief medical officer, said in a written statement. “We want to support their leadership and safer healthcare for all patients.” --
by Rebecca Vesely
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