Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Why has Medicare designated retained foreign objects as "never events?"
A: Recently Medicare has decided not to reimburse hospitals for the medical costs of removing retained foreign objects. The principle is simply that a hospital should not be compensated for a medical complication that should never have happened and occurred only because of malpractice.
Foreign objects should never be unintentionally left in the body. They are preventable by careful counting and taking reasonable steps to make sure that all of the sponges put into the body during surgery are removed before the surgeon completes the surgery. Failure to do so is almost always medical malpractice.
