Is the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service's lack of reimbursement for postoperative urinary tract infections in elderly emergency surgery patients justified?

Background Urinary tract infections, a risk factor for readmission, have been deemed a potentially preventable problem and, therefore, not reimbursable by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services since 2008. Defining the risk factors for development of urinary tract infection in the postoperative period will provide risk stratification for development of urinary tract infection in these challenging patients. Methods Pre-, intra-, and postoperative characteristics were collected for patients ≥65 years who underwent an emergency abdominal operation from the 2005 to 2012 National Surgical Quality Improvement Program Participant User File, a database of 374 participating hospitals. In-hospital urinary tract infections occurring within 30 days of the operation were identified. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was conducted to identify risk factors of urinary tract infection. Results In total, 53,879 patients were included, 1,881 (3.5%) of whom were diagnosed with a postoperative urinary tract infection before discharge. In-hospital urinary tract infection was associated with a longer hospital stay (27 vs 13 days, P