Medicare won't pay for Medical Errors

Medicare Won't Pay for Medical Errors
By KEVIN SACK
Medicare will stop paying hospitals for the added costs
of treating patients who are injured in their care.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/us/01mistakes.html?th&emc=th

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Although the "policy" will be that the patients aren't to be charged when Medicare won't pay, I suspect some doctors/hospitals will find a way to get around that and add insult to injury by suing patients to personally pay the additional bills that Medicare refused to pay.  It's already quite common to blame the patients for not getting well, so why would they not take that attitude out of the doctor's office and into the courtroom?

And what about those like me, who need lifelong medical care as a result of malpractice?  Will Medicare (or a private insurer with the same policy) only refuse to pay the particular medical group responsible, or will every doctor in the country be told he's not getting paid for treating me, if it can be related back to the malpractice committed by another medical group?

I think it's a good idea to make hospitals bear the costs of their preventable medical errors, but there are too many ways for this to come back to haunt the patients the rest of their lives, so there have to be some guidelines and safeguards put into place to protect the patient.

Doctors claimed they were unaware of information provided in writing, swore up and down that I myself told them the lies that appear in my medical records (things I know I never would say), and repeatedly found ways to put the blame on me for their malpractice.  It wasn't their fault: I "made no sense", I misunderstood, I told lies about my medical history, I didn't beat them over the head hard enough with the notion of being diagnosed by a virologist so even though that was written down by the doctor it's my fault that it didn't sink in. 

And when you show them the information in black and white, it's somehow my fault that they didn't read it before my appointment.  As I exploded to one of them, what is the point of my filling out a long information form that you sent to me if you're not going to read any of the answers on that form? 

Apparently, I was supposed to come in the morning of my appointment to read the information form to him to be sure he knew what it said, and come back several hours after the appointment to make sure that the correct information was dictated for the records.  It's not his fault that I didn't stand over him the entire day to make sure that he did his job correctly.