A Bold Step Forward in Health Care – Not Charging Patients for Egregious Malpractice
The Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems recently announced a new policy not to seek payments from patients or insurers for obvious medical errors. Among the mistakes that hospitals won’t charge for are surgery on the wrong patient, surgery on the wrong body part and retention of a foreign object in the body. No doubt it was only coincidence that a few days before the announcement a state law took effect creating a medical error reporting system.
Governor Douglas, attending the press conference where the new policy was announced said, “Vermont is the third state to take this voluntary step, putting us well ahead of others in this area.” Wow! With this kind of innovation, can it be long before the health care crisis is completely resolved?
The full Rutland Herald article on this matter is here.
Comment from Ethan
Date: January 23, 2008, 10:30 pm
So that I understand this… does a prospective patient sign a wavier of malpractice in exchange for not having to pay if the hospital screws up? On the otherhand, if they charge the patient, it must have been done right – so there’s no malpractice? Yea… this will work.