According to a new US government report released on Monday medical errors during or after the surgery may cost employers nearly $ 1.5 billion a year. The researchers analyzed data on more than 161,000 patients in employer-based health plans who underwent surgery between 2001 and 2002.

The team concluded that the effects of medical errors continue long after the patient leaves the hospital. Medical error studies that focus only on the inpatient stay can underestimate the costs by up to 30 percent.

The report indicated that one of every 10 patients who died within 90 days of surgery died because of a preventable error and one-third of the deaths occurred after the patient was discharged.

A patient who developed acute respiratory failure after surgery cost insurers $28,218 (52 percent more) compared to patients who didn’t suffer those complications. Nursing care associated with medical errors, including pressure ulcers and hip fractures, cost an additional $12,196 (33 percent more) per patient. An infection cost $ 19,480 or 48 percent more, agency researchers William Encinosa and Fred Hellinger found.

“Many hospitals are struggling to survive financially,” study co-author William Encinosa, senior economist at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, said in a statement. “The point of our paper is that the cost savings from reducing medical errors are much larger than previously thought.

44,000 to 98,000 Americans die because of medical mistakes each year, with an associated cost of $17 billion to $29 billion, a 1998 report by the Institute of Medicine estimates.

“Like the physical and emotional harm caused by medical errors, the financial consequences don’t stop at the hospital door. Eliminating medical errors and their after effects must continue to be top priority for our health care system,” AHRQ Director Carolyn Clancy said in a statement.

The study was published in the July 28 issue of the journalHealth Services Research.