IL hospital fees to pay for error reports

A new annual licensing fee for Illinois hospitals that takes effect this month will finally fund a system for reporting medical errors that was established by state law back in 2005. The new fee, which will raise about $1.7 million annually, was part of legislation signed by Gov. Pat Quinn last week. Hospitals had been the only licensed health care organizations in Illinois not paying a state licensing fee. Now the state will collect $55 per hospital bed to fund a system for hospitals to report mistakes such as surgeries that are performed on the wrong body part. The idea is to improve patient safety by analyzing how errors occur.