At Teaching Hospitals, Aggressive Screening May Lead To Medicare Penalties

(By Jordan Rau for Kaiser Health News)

CHICAGO — The puffiness along Carol Ascher’s left leg seemed like normal swelling, probably from the high dose of chemotherapy Dr. Karl Bilimoria had injected the previous day. But it could have been a blood clot. He quickly ordered an ultrasound.

“We were just being abundantly cautious,” he said.

Such vigilance is a point of pride at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. But the hospital’s tests have identified so many infections and serious blood clots that the federal government is cutting the institution’s Medicare payments for a year, by about $1.6 million. Read article here…..

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

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