Healthcare Reform 2011: Hospital Acquired Infections and Physician Compare

2011 looks to be an exciting year for healthcare reform. Some of the new healthcare bill’s changes are already being implemented.

Hospital-Acquired Infection Reporting

Starting this month, hospitals are now required to report hospital-acquired infection rates to Medicare. Hospitals that fail to do so will lose 2% of their Medicare reimbursement money in 2012. Reducing hospital-acquired infection rates has the potential to save $45 billion per year. The data collected will be readily available on hospital compare.

Physician Compare

A “Physician Compare” website is also in the works. This site is wrapped in controversy as it will publish physician-specific data on efficiency, outcomes of diagnoses/treatment, care coordination, and more. It will also contain data on specific non-physician caregivers, such as nurses and nurse practitioners. While the rules for the website will certainly undergo a thorough revision process, individual specific healthcare data will become easily accessible to the American public.

However, this year may also see the death of the reform bill. The new House Committee Chair of healthcare policy, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), has vowed that if the House cannot repeal the bill in its totality, representatives will “go after the bill piece by piece. We will look at these individual pieces to see if we can’t have the thing crumble.”

Democrats in the Senate have sworn to defend the reform bill should a repeal vote come up through the House. Democrats argue that consumers already are benefitting from the changes being made. They claim that undoing the law would increase the number of uninsured Americans, place control of health insurance back into the hands of insurers, and increase the federal budget deficit.