When you have to go to the hospital for care and treatment for a health condition, chances are you don’t anticipate developing a condition that’s unrelated to the condition you’re being treated for during your hospital stay. The problem is, this does happen, and there’s even a name for it: it’s known as a “hospital-acquired condition”.
The Hospital-Acquired Condition (HAC) Reduction Program was established under the Affordable Care Act with the goal of encouraging hospitals to reduce the number of hospital-acquired conditions among their patients. Late last year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released data from the program, which has resulted in Medicare cutting payments by one percent to 724 hospitals around the nation.
Of the 724 hospitals affected, 79 of them are in California, including 31 from the Los Angeles and Orange Counties. The full list of the hospitals penalized under the HAC Reduction program can be found here.
In coming to its determinations, the program gave hospitals a Total HAC Score, which was based on two domains, patient safety and healthcare-associated infections. Each Total HAC Score ranged from one to 10. The higher the score, the worse the hospital performed.
As health care consumers, we expect hospital stays to help treat the conditions that ail us. It can be disconcerting to find yourself developing an unrelated infection simply because you had to stay at the hospital to receive treatment.
If you or a loved one has been injured as a result of medical malpractice and are seeking a qualified medical malpractice attorney, contact Los Angeles doctor-turned-lawyer Bradley I. Kramer for a free consultation today.