Originally Posted by Sam

FL- I am sorry you had that experience. You sound knowledgable about your daughters condition and I hope she has a good outcome.

I will say the issue of low standards of care or malpractice are serious issues-however they are not the cause of the astronomical healthcare inflation we have seen. Tort refrom would have little impact on lowering the cost of healthcare. It would only put the responsibilty of malpractice and longterm care secondary to malpractice onto the taxpayer.

Example: If a physician makes a catastrophic mistake that requires their patient to need care their entire life that could cost in the millions-and there is a cap of 500,000 the burden of the malpractice is shifted from the physician and onto the tax payer. Specialists are most likely to get sued and most make incomes over 7 figures. In fact tort reform would not only raise taxes it could in rare instances diminish quality of care if the motivating factor for the physician was only to avoid a lawsuit (hopefully that would not be likely-but the possibilty exists).

Physicians and Registered Nurses are like any other profession-most are competent and compassionate....but there are always a few who either are unable or lose thier ability to do their professional best.

I have worked in teaching hospitals, the VA and now a private non-profit hospital. I prefer large regional private non profit hospitals for the highest quality of care

FL-the hospital record is a legal document. The saturation levels should be documented by the R.T. Get a copy of the record...if you think it has been tampered with that can be detected easily.

Originally Posted by freedomlover

Ya know, that is wonderful advise. However, sometimes it is not mistakes, but just plain arrogance on the doctors part.

Example one: My daughter went in with asthma problems. After dealing with it for years, I made myself pretty knowledgable about what works for her. I suggested that her first nebulizer treatment contain epi. The doctor kept her on a straight treatment, laced with epi for an hour continuously, and refused to come back into the room to discontinue the treatment. The result is she came very close to stroking out at the age of 17.

Example two: My son needed stitches in his head, but he is allergic to tetanus. I would not let the doctor administer the tetanus and he got absolutely hateful with me. My regular doctor ordered a special shot (globular something) but it had to be administered at the hospital. When they came into the room to give him the shot (special ordered, very expensive) they had two syringes. I asked what they were. They were the globular shot and a tetanus shot. When I refused the tetanus shot AGAIN, the same doctor argued with me and called me stupid.

Example three: My daughter was admitted to the hospital for here asthma and pneumonia. It is written very clearly that she is allergic to theopholine (theador, ect.). The doctor decided that that they had changed theopholin, so my daughter could have it. By the next morning, I knew what they had done. She was bouncing off the wall, throwing up, diarhea, and her asthma was much worse. A stay that would have lasted 2 maybe three days, turned into a two week stay.

Example four: My pregnant daughter went to emergency room in respiratory distress. They order one treatment and two steroid shots, and sent her home with an sats level of 90%, cross-wheezing, still complaining of difficulty of breathing, enclave of ribs and throat, crackling in lobes and blue around mouth and fingernails. The doctor told her she was fine. Less than an hour later, she was returned to the hospital admitted, and now she is going downhill. They started with treatments every six hours, then 3 hours, now she is at "as needed status" which means that she can have 3 every 90 minutes.

Originally Posted by wvpeach

Its good practice to be pro active at hospitals when a loved one is sick.

Stay at the hospital , ask questions and make sure those mistakes aren't made.

Originally Posted by freedomlover

I will admit that I have had, personally, very good physicians. The problems have almost always been in the emergency room where this hospital subcontracts doctors from a health care system. When the local doctors ran the ER, there were not these types of problems.

Originally Posted by justme

I've been very fortunate in the health dept. The only time I was really involved with a long hospital stay for a serious illness was for my grandfather.
He was in for complications from prostate cancer which eventually lead to his death. While he was there, I became the watchdog. I questioned everything , and some posters may have to look up the word "civil", but I did it in a civil way.
Everyone involved was very helpful and would take any time needed to explain what was happening and why.
There was always family around and maybe it did have an effect on how he was treated. Maybe it was just standard at that hospital.
Being involved and asking questions sure can't hurt.

Originally Posted by Politically incorrect

Ask any Republican why health care is so high. He will tell you it is because of the huge sums of money juries award people who claim malpractice, hence, making malpractice insurance premiums sky high.
The actual reason that malpractice insurance is so high, is because there is so much malpractice.
Not only by doctors, but by nurses, hospitals, pharmacies, etc.
Consider the following: my wife was in the hospital for knee replacement surgery. Right after the surgery, a nurse hooked her up to a pain pump that delivers pain medicine whenever the patient presses a button. However, the nurse left the button on top of the pump where my wife couldn't reach it...rendering it useless. Fortunately, I was there to correct the nurse's mistake. The next day, they unplugged the pump to take her (and the pump) to PT, but when they brought her back, the back-up battery was dead, and they forgot to plug it in the wall outlet. When I got there she was in alot of pain because, once again, a mistake had been made.
Two more mistakes were made when I was in the hospital...one of them nearly costing me my life.

The other thing contributing to the high cost of health care is the HUGE profits pharmaceutical companies make.
Example: Oxycontin has been on the market for years. The cost of producing a drug goes down over the years and yet the cost of Oxycontin has increased 500% since it first when on the market.
60 tabs of 80 mg Oxycontin costs over $1000. The profit margin is astronomical.
It's easy to see why health care cost so much .