Chicago Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog

According to a report by Bruce Japsen of the Chicago Tribune some of the countries biggest corporations are refusing to pay for medical malpractice and calling for hospitals to admit and pay for the mistakes:

If you go to a restaurant and get a bad meal, you probably won't have to pay for it. And lemon laws allow consumers who buy cars that never work right to get their money back. But in health care, there is no tradition of rebates -- even when a hospital surgical team leaves a sponge in a patient's chest cavity after open-heart surgery, or when a mix-up of a patient's medication causes a prolonged illness, employers and insurers say. Tired of paying for botched medical procedures and low-quality medical care, some of the nation's largest businesses Wednesday called on U.S. hospitals to agree to apologize and waive costs related to so-called 'never' events -- medical errors these employers say should never happen. Both the Leapfrog Group, a national coalition of large health-care purchasers such as Boeing, General Motors, General Electric and the Midwest Business Group on Health -- a Chicago-based business coalition representing more than 80 employers -- said hospitals should commit to new policy on 28 health-care "never events" as a way to make providers of medical care more accountable."

Bruce Japsen, Chicago Tribune, Monterey Herald, 11/17/06
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/mcherald/business/16035739.htm