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Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

INDUSTRY NOTES ~ Medicare, Medicaid Pay Out Nearly $10 Billion Each Year For Injuries

Published on Sat Nov 11, 2006

Plus: AMA has developed 151 quality measures for physicians. Injuries cost U.S. hospitals approximately $20 billion every year, according to new statistics from HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

Medicare and Medicaid paid for nearly half of all injuries that require inpatient care, and more than 12 percent of injured patients requiring hospital stays are uninsured, AHRQ reports. Nearly one million hospital admissions each year are due to broken bones, with poisonings (including overdosing on medications or substances or taking the wrong drug) coming in as the second most common cause of injury-related hospitalizations, the agency finds.

Falls are the most frequent causes of injuries and account for 38 percent of injury-related hospital stays, AHRQ says. Falls account for 68 percent of all injury hospitalizations among patients who are 65 years of age and older.  
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