Well before the Affordable Care Act became the law of the land, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) implemented the Hospital-Acquired Conditions (HACs) Initiative as part of a value-based purchasing program.
This 2008 decision to cease reimbursements to hospitals for treating patients with any of eight conditions -- if acquired during their inpatient stays -- was intended to motivate hospitals to do whatever it took to eliminate preventable infections; i.e., to raise the quality of the care they deliver while reducing the huge costs associated with battling HACs.
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