Aetna, WellPoint, and other big insurers are moving to ban payments for care resulting from serious errors, including operating on the wrong limb or giving a patient incompatible blood. The companies are following the lead of Medicare, which announced last summer that starting this October, it will no longer pay the extra cost of treating bed sores, falls, and six other preventable injuries and infections that occur while a patient is in a hospital. continues…

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From Medical Economics magazine, more on health plans ...

 In the debate over rising healthcare costs, some see managed care as part of the solution, and some see it as part of the problem. Industry representatives, to no one’s surprise, place themselves squarely in the first camp. They blame rising costs on a gaggle of factors not of their own doing—overconsumption by consumers, physician overutilization, and poor-quality care, to name a few. To bring high-quality, cost-effective healthcare to all Americans, the industry has sought to tame these runaway drivers. The industry isn’t alone in seeing managed care as part of the solution. In an editorial late last month, The New York Times included managed care among the solutions to the cost crisis. Properly employed so as not to trigger another backlash, the Times editors suggested, it still has a role to play in keeping a lid on things.

But not everyone sees things that way. continues…

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From Medical Economics magazine, more on health plans ...