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 .

Politically incorrect. Going thru a bit of mal-practice with my daughter right now. I agree with you completely. Whatever you do, don't make the complaint to the Hospital. Go directly to your Department of Health and Human Services and whoever their accreditation goes thru.

__________________
http://nwyc.com/
National Write Your Congressman

At the risk of sounding insensitive, all your wife would have had to do would be to press the nurse call button.

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.

I agree that it's always a good practice to have an advocate with you in such circumstances.

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.

__________________
http://nwyc.com/
National Write Your Congressman

Sorry freedom lover that happened to you. In the interest of full disclsure my son is a orthopedic surgeon , my daughter a pharmacist, studying to be a holistic doctor, my sisters a radiologist and I have several doctors among my cousins.

I can tell you that even doctors are not happy with the current system. money is the bottom line and patient care is suffering for it. Gone are the days when doctors could spend 1/2 a hour talking to a patient.

My son being a second year graduate is expected to see one patient every 15 minutes. doesn't really matter if the patient should have more time 15 minutes is what is alloted and they get in trouble if they go over that.

He doesn't ever get to eat, and he works long grueling hours.
I have talked to the medical schools when both my kids were in college .

How crazy is it to put a med student on call for 36 hours straight in the emergency room? Of coarse mistakes are going to happen. The first day he walked into the emergency room , the doctor told him at six o'clock in the morning that he was going home, his replacement would be in at 8:00 and he should handle it till 8:00 . needless to say my son was very worried he'd make a mistake. hecking vitals on patients over and over to make sure his treatments were not causing more damage than good.

Physicians heal thy self. The medical profession would tell a worker who came in and said I just don't feel right, have to work 14 hour shifts , 5 days a week and sometimes my boss has me stay at work on call for 36 hours. The medical profession would say, well that is your problem your exhausted, you need to find a better job and not work so much.

But they reguire that much work and time from their own people.

Sure there are arrogant doctors and nurses who just do not care. But the whole system is really messed up and the ones that do care find its impossible to make any changes.

I know several good Docs, nurses and pharmacists, they get threatened by their hospitals to just go along and stop rocking the boat.

I have actually heard Doctors say that a 80 year old woman has lived long enough, don't waste money on treating her , just keep her comfortable.

The system has lots of problems. You have to be a squeaky wheel to get good care for your family. And a big and have very good insurance or government pay.

The health care system in this country needs a revamp and a lot of change and the first should be to take private insurance out of the equation.

My daughter would tell you about unsafe sanitary conditions in the hospitals, things like sewer backing up in sinks in rooms where IV's are made for surgery patients. Being so under staffed that people's death might have been prevented if they got their meds on time , and the hospital gets a fine for that death. Your right most times the family never knows and it is covered up.

She'd tell you about the VA system giving patients whatever meds are cheap and laying around instead of what they really need.

And this is the system so many want to see continue.

But I know this most go into to medicine , because they care about people and want to help. Many good people do the best they can working in hospitals. Its the system that needs changed. Then maybe the doctors and nurses would be able to really do the job they want to do.

I went through this with both of my parents. I usually recognized the little mistakes, but I also acknowledged the staff being way too busy and understaffed.

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.

__________________
http://nwyc.com/
National Write Your Congressman

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.