“If we had not documented incorrectly, we don’t believe that we would have been on this list,” Tonya Heim, the hospital’s vice president of patient services and CNO, told The Herald.
The problem, according to Ms. Heim, was that staff members incorrectly documented HACs in late 2011, which falls during the HAC Reduction Program reporting period of July 2011 through June 2013.
Memorial Hospital is one of 721 in the nation facing a 1 percent cut to Medicare funds in fiscal year 2015 from the HAC program. Some have argued such cuts to Medicare, aimed at improving patient safety in hospitals, could have the opposite effect.
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