Fierce Healthcare: In 2006, nearly 1,500 patients died due to medical errors in Pennsylvania, according to a newspaper analysis of hospital billing records. Such deaths are an estimate of what the state would not be paying for if its new "no pay for preventable errors" Medicaid policy had been in place since then--and what the state is likely to uncover when it stops paying for such errors in the future. While the newspaper' analysis didn't look at whether the deaths were preventable, the numbers do give a preliminary look at the error problem, given that it used the same 419 billing codes the state will use.