Los Angeles, CA -- (ReleaseWire) -- 02/22/2011 -- According to a recent study by the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services, one out of every seven Medicare patients are at risk of sloppy medical care when hospitalized.

The new study showed at least $4.4 billion a year were added to government health costs due to these conflicting medical events.

Within the month of October 2008, an estimated 134,000 patients under Medicare were faced with an adverse event. These events ranged from health setbacks to death, during hospital stays. Nearly 44% of these events were preventable issues.

The study showed the major cause of these problems to be infections in the hospital. One of the most reoccurring problems was medication, massive bleeding, overload of fluids, and surgeries.

Nancy Foster, an American Hospital Association official, said to fix errors in medication and the problems above the importance of developing better procedures is necessary. This recent study was conducted by expert sample reviews of 780 patient files. The information will be available shortly on the inspector general’s website.

A team leader for this study, Ms. Dorrill, said this was one of the most important reports on unfortunate events they were doing in reaction to the health care law passed in 2006. The study by the inspector general was the first to acquire a statistically accurate rate on conflicting events revolving around the hospitalized population.

Medicare recipients should always be cautioned when dealing with Medicare. The numbers associated with Medicare should never be shared with anyone except with a person providing care. Also, Dr. Donald Berwick has urged recipients to call if there are any problems with billing or any other issues.

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