Medicare trims payments to 800 hospitals, citing patient safety incidents

Eight hundred hospitals will be paid less by Medicare this year because of high rates of infections and patient injuries, federal records show. The number is the highest since the federal government launched the Hospital-Acquired Conditions (HAC) Reduction Program, created by the Affordable Care Act, five years ago. Under the program, 1,756 hospitals have been penalized at least once, a Kaiser Health News analysis found. This year, 110 hospitals are being punished for the fifth straight time. The penalties pit hospitals against one another in a race to prevent the most infections, blood clots, cases of sepsis, bedsores, hip fractures and other complications. Each year, the quarter of general hospitals with the highest rates are punished, even if their records have improved from the previous year.