Foreseeing the morass of litigation that will ensue:
Medicare’s announcement it will refuse payment to hospitals for treatment caused by hospital mistakes redounds most severely on the patient entangled in a labyrinth of complex legal issues between the hospital and Medicare. At a minimum, this will result in credit damage and financial distress to the patient. Added to this is the foreseeable paranoia of hospitals with Medicare patients and the temptation to conceal mistakes instead of resorting to peer reviews as is now practiced to learn from mistakes.
