Taxpayers foot bill for infections

11/17/2005

BY JEFF SONDERMAN

Hospital-acquired infections cost state and federal taxpayers at least $1.4 billion in hospital charges in 2004, according to a report released today by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council.

The council, an independent state agency, was the first in the nation to publicize information about patients who are infected in hospitals while seeking treatment for other conditions. It issued a ground-breaking report in July about the overall number of reported hospital infections, 11,668, noting that many more could be unreported.

This latest analysis asks who pays the bill.

The answer, the agency said, is taxpayers. Information about specific hospitals was not reported, but of all hospital-acquired infections in 2004, 76 percent were billed to publicly funded Medicare and Medicaid programs.

“Whether you get an infection or not, you are paying for it,” said Lisa McGiffert, director of the Consumers Union’s national campaign to stop hospital infections. “This is costing our system a lot of money, and that is money that could be spent to cover more people.”

In addition to the $1.4 billion burden on taxpayers, hospital-acquired infections put patients at higher risk of death and result in hospital stays of weeks rather than days.

In a written response to the report, Moses Taylor Hospital said it fully reports infections to the council. The hospital also monitors and investigates infections and teaches its staff how to avoid them.

Community Medical Center chose not to comment because the report contained no information about specific hospitals. Efforts to reach officials at Mercy Hospital were not successful.

Representing all Pennsylvania hospitals, the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania countered by saying the true cost is likely lower than $1.4 billion in charges, because insurers pay hospitals only a percentage of what they are billed.

On the other hand, the $1.4 billion figure may be too low because many hospitals did not fully report their infections in the first year, said Marc P. Volavka, the council’s executive director.

As evidence, he said, hospitals have been reporting almost twice as many infections this year as the year before.

The 2004 data also do not account for all hospital-acquired infections. The council sought data about only five leading types of infection.

The numbers may climb as the reporting system improves in coming years, and in 2006 as hospitals are required to submit data on all types of infections.

“From the financial costs to extended hospital stays to potentially preventable deaths, hospital-acquired infections exact a heavy toll throughout Pennsylvania,” the council said in its four-page report, which is available at www.phc4.com. “Reducing hospital-acquired infections will save lives and money.”