Nats Win!!

The FEHBlog is lucky to have been able to purchase post-season Nationals tickets due to his partial season ticketholder status and some moolah. He went to this afternoon's crucial game against the St. Louis Cardinals with his son John. The game was tied one - one in the bottom of the ninth inning and Jayson Werth, the National's lead off hitter, came up to bat. On the thirteenth pitch of the at bat, Werth hit a home run into the National's bullpen. It was an electrifying moment. I don't think that I have ever heard such a roar from a crowd. The crowd didn't want to leave. The FEHBlog is looking forward to tomorrow night's game which will decide whether the Nationals or the Cardinals will face the San Francisco Giants for the National League championship.

Modern Healthcare reports that

The federal government's 4-year-old nonpayment policy for hospital-acquired conditions has had no measurable effect on rates of several types of healthcare-associated infections specifically targeted by the program, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

In October 2008, the CMS stopped reimbursing hospitals for 12 hospital-acquired conditions, including patient falls, late-stage pressure ulcers, air embolisms and certain healthcare-associated infections.

Either the sanctions are not strong enough as one blogger commented or the hospitals don't have as much ability to avoid these infections as policymakers expected. The FEHBlog's gut reaction is that the latter conclusion is more likely the correct conclusion than the former.

In more good news, Business Insurance reports that changes sparked by the Affordable Care Act is causing medical malpractice insurance premiums to increase.

Medical malpractice coverage costs are expected to experience modest increases in the short term, driven upward in reaction to the ongoing consolidation of hospital physicians' offices and other providers in the U.S., due in large part to dramatic changes to health care delivery and reimbursement models. 

Of course, medical malpractice premium increases cause providers to ask for more money from the health insurers.

And because this is the FEHBlog, it should be noted that Kaiser Health News is giving advice on whether to drop FEHBP coverage for a Medigap plan.