Medical complications cost U.S. patients extra days in the hospital, add $10 billion to their medical bills and are blamed for more than 30,000 deaths each year. Believe it or not that is the good news. Why?
Well, previously the same report issued in 1999 showed that doctors were killing 100,000 patients a year and adding from $17 billion to $30 billion a year to health care costs. Has the situation really improved that much? I doubt it. I certainly don't see it from my perspective. My best guess is that the research group that conducted the survey had four years to redesign the analysis more favorably.
However, even in this favorable reconfiguration the numbers really don't look that good, do they?
JAMA October 8, 2003;290:1868-1874