Thanks to my friend and fellow blogger Bob Coffield for hosting me (during my homeless period) at the Healthcare Law Blog. Here is an excerpt of my post:

Today I viewed a TV ad sponsored by the AARP. It was promoting a remote alarm device that elderly people could use to notify EMS if they fall and need help. The ad featured a surprising statistic:

“One in three people over the age of 65 will fall down this year.”

That’s a pretty common occurrence, wouldn’t you say? It certainly argues for the need for those wearable alarm buttons.

But at the same time that these ads are running on television, Medicare is moving forward with their “never event” quality program. The initiative means that Medicare will not pay for the care of patients who experience a “never event” in a hospital – funding for that patient’s care will need to come out of the hospital’s budget. Medicare argues that they shouldn’t have to pay for medical errors such as “wrong side surgery.”

While I’m sympathetic to their perspective on wrong side surgery, the list of never events reaches far beyond the limits of medical errors to include things like mental status changes, infections and…

drum roll please . . .

Falls….