Medicare Penalizes Morris County Hospital Over Infection Rates

By Kaiser Health News

In an effort to crack down on medical errors, the federal government is cutting Medicare payments to 721 hospitals around the country -- including Chilton Hospital in Pompton Plains, one of 23 New Jersey hospitals being penalized, according to an article on the Kaiser Health News website.

Chilton’s Pompton Plains campus sits at the crossroads of Morris, Passaic, and Bergen counties.

The 721 hospitals being penalized were named in records released last week, Kaiser said. The penalties, which are estimated to total $373 million, are falling particularly hard on academic medical centers: Roughly half of them will be punished, according to a Kaiser Health News analysis.

Medicare assessed these new penalties against some of the most renowned hospitals in the nation, including the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pa.

One out of every seven hospitals in the nation will have its Medicare payments lowered by 1 percent over the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 and continues through September 2015. The health law mandates the reductions for the quarter of hospitals that Medicare assessed as having the highest rates of “hospital-acquired conditions,” or HACs. These conditions include infections from catheters, blood clots, bed sores and other complications that are considered avoidable.

In evaluating hospitals for the HAC penalties, the government adjusted infection rates by the type of hospital. When judging complications, it took into account the differing levels of sickness of each hospital’s patients, their ages and other factors that might make the patients more fragile. Still, academic medical centers have been complaining those adjustments are insufficient given the especially complicated cases they handle, such as organ transplants.

Here is the complete list of New Jersey hospitals that were penalized:

• Bergen Regional Medical Center, Paramus
• Capital Health Medical Center – Hopewell, Pennington
• Centrastate Medical Center, Freehold
• Chilton Medical Center, Pompton Plains
• Hackensack University Medical Center, Hackensack
• Inspira Medical Center Vineland, Vineland
• JFK Medical Ctr – Anthony M. Yelencsics Community, Edison
• Meadowlands Hospital Medical Center, Secaucus
• Memorial Hospital Of Salem County, Salem
• Monmouth Medical Center, Long Branch
• Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, Newark
• Ocean Medical Center, Brick
• Overlook Medical Center, Summit
• Palisades Medical Center, North Bergen
• Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, New Brunswick
• Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital – Somerset, Somerville
• Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Hamilton, Hamilton
• Saint Peter’s University Hospital, New Brunswick
• Shore Medical Center, Somers Point
• Southern Ocean Medical Center, Manahawkin
• St. Mary’s Hospital, Passaic
• The University Hospital, Newark
• University Medical Center Of Princeton At Plainsboro, Plainsboro