Another take on (not) paying for medical mistakes

A May 5 article in the Daytona Beach News-Journal provided an interesting illustration of how medical errors impact the population in Florida:

Health care killed 212 Floridians last year. Eighty-two others in 2007 had to have surgery to remove a foreign object left in during a previous surgery. Another 140 had a surgical procedure unrelated to their diagnosis, according to reports amassed at the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration from the state’s 291 hospitals.

The article makes the illustration to ponder the question: How will Florida hospitals be impacted after Oct. 1, 2008 when Medicare quits paying for specific hospital-acquired conditions and medical errors? According to the article, Medicare pays 44 percent of the hospital bills throughout Florida, and a significantly higher percentage of inpatient bills at some individual hospitals.

Access the full article here.