Health Highlights: Oct. 2, 2008

• Hong Kong's food safety agency said it found melamine in a sample of Lotte Cream Cheese Cake manufactured by Japan's Lotte China Foods Co. Ltd., in mainland China.
• In Thailand, inspectors impounded 80 tons of Chinese milk powder. The importer denied any contamination.
• Australian food regulators recalled Lotte Koala Biscuits, a popular line of cookies, as a precaution, following reports of melamine contamination.

-----

Medicare to End Payments to Hospitals for Certain Medical Errors

Starting Oct. 1, Medicare will no longer reimburse hospitals for the additional expense of treating patients who are injured while in their care.

---

---

Medicare, which provides insurance coverage for older Americans and the disabled, has identified 10 "reasonably preventable" conditions for which it will no longer reimburse hospitals. They include patients who receive incompatible blood transfusions; patients who develop infections after certain surgeries; and patients who must undergo a second operation to remove a medical tool, such as a sponge, left inside them. Also on the list are serious bed sores, injuries from falls, and urinary tract infections caused by catheters, The New York Times reported.

The new regulations, authorized by Congress, will also prevent hospitals from billing patients directly for procedures related to medical errors.

The regulations could apply to hundreds of thousands of hospital stays; Medicare covers an estimated 12.5 million stays annually. They are expected to result in savings of approximately $21 million a year, a small slice of the $110 billion spent on inpatient care in 2007, the newspaper said.

Still, they are viewed as another step in the Bush administration's drive to overhaul the nation's medical payment system, which has been criticized by many as driving up costs by rewarding the quantity of care, not the quality of care, the Times said.