All of these things they aren't paying for, by the way, are things happening in the hospital, not on the outside.
According to Medicare, and now Medicaid, the hospital shouldn't allow Granny to fall and break her hip. If she does, it's their fault, so they should eat the cost.
Those of us who live in the real world know that when you deal with people, things don't always go according to plan. My dad, now deceased, fell multiple times in the nursing home and the hospital. It's a wonder he never broke anything. Not a single fall was the fault of anyone but himself. He circumvented everything that was tried to keep him from falling, including incessant reminders not to get up by himself. He was determined to do it anyway. (Once he even took a nursing assistant down with him).
In an ideal world, patients would never fall, never get catheter infections, never get surgical wound infections, but we don't live in an ideal world. Sometimes the best everyone can do isn't good enough and things can happen. (I'd like to see the people who write the rules keep the diabetic's blood sugar under control when the diabetic has family members smuggling in food, or when the patient sneaks out to the vending machines in the cafeteria- or to the convenience store down the street!)
Right now this applies to hospitals. I would not be shocked to hear in the fairly near future that it applies to individual patients and providers.
“They are just stuck with not getting paid.”
... and therefore having to make the cost up from charges to the other patients.
That’s always been their only recourse with government healthcare. There’s no negotiation.
(These rules do sound reasonable, though a very small amount of error could be allowed.)
You take an elderly person who is confused or disoriented, put them in a bed with no side rails or a wheelchair with no lap buddy... and you're asking for disaster. If they're easily excitable, it just compounds the chances of injuries.
The reasoning? They have a "right" to fall. We live in an upside down world.
“The hospital can’t refuse to treat it. They are just stuck with not getting paid.”
The day is fast approaching when hospitals WILL refuse to treat certain people, and will have armed guards at the doors to keep those people out.