HometownSource Blogs

If I went into a restaurant and order a veggie burger, and the waiter came back with a steak, I certainly not pay for both items. Same if I went to the store an accidentally bought the wrong size shirt. Upon returning it, I wouldn’t pay for both of them. It just wouldn’t make any sense.

But that’s exactly what most hospitals were doing until recently. That’s right. If you went in to get surgery on your knee, and they operated on your arm instead, you’d still have to pay.

Now, 23 states will not make the patient pay if they do something like operate on the wrong body part, person or use the wrong blood type. Well isn’t that nice of them?

Turns out there’s even a term used for this type of mistakes, “never events,” because they should never happen in the first place. Aside from the slip-ups mentioned earlier, other “never events include giving a mother the wrong baby, leaving an instrument from surgery inside a person and “wrong site” procedure. The wrong site can mean the wrong body part, place, and in some instances person. In total, the National Quality Forum has identified 28. Read em’ here.
Now I’m trying to refrain from the obvious rant about these types of mistakes even happening. (In Florida, one woman’s brother actually died from being given the wrong blood type, who dropped the ball on that one?)

But I digress. The real issue is why were Americans ever really paying for these “never events” anyways.

Lucky for us Minnesotans, our hospitals don’t charge us for their mistakes. Which is comforting, but not so much because these kind if life threatening mistakes happen. I understand working in a hospital could possibly be one of the most stressful jobs out there, but we’re talking lives here. Don’t they like triple check the charts.

I’ve been fortunate enough to never be messed up on at the hospital (I’ve also been lucky enough to never need surgery or break a bone or be admitted in to the hospital).

But what about you? Anyone from another state that doesn’t cover these “never events” Anyone, i dare to ask, ever be the subject of one of these mistakes? Do you think that anyone, in any state should be paying for said slip-ups?