What's Up Doc?

MSNBC.com has an article about who pays when the Hospital makes a mistake. If you said, "We do!" you win (or, I guess, lose). Increasingly, however, more and more hospitals are taking the "my bad" approach and taking the loss. 40 states, however, still pull the Hussein and charge you for the bullet, and here's my favorite quote. Its from Debbie Rogers vice president of quality and emergency services for the California Hospital Association

But if a surgeon operates on a person’s third cervical vertebrae instead of the fourth, and the hospital staff prepared the correct site, who should pay? Is that the hospital’s fault?”

You know, I'm not sure. But I am sure its not the patients fault. Lets review the players under here scenario. Hospital staff prepped the right site? Check? Patient out like a light? Check? Doctor operated on right site? Ooops. Now, using a simple diagram it looks to me like maybe the hospital could take the bill up with the doctor. I wonder how much more careful the doc would be if she (ha, didn't see that coming did you? No sexist am I.) had to pay the bill? If the people in charge of this dilemma (Hospital's and doctors) only see the patients wallet as the solution then I'm not convinced that we, the patients, are going to get the best solution.