Study on Hospital Mistakes - NYTimes.com Re "Hospitals Profit From Surgical Mistakes, Study Finds" (news article, April 17): The study in The Journal of the American Medical Association can be easily misunderstood and lead people to draw faulty conclusions about hospitals" commitment to quality improvement efforts. To clarify: While the report found that payers (like Medicare and insurance companies) may pay more to cover patients who have experienced post-surgical complications, the report also states that the cost of caring for these patients is higher. In fact, the 12 hospitals studied are reimbursed less than the overall cost of caring for patients with surgical complications by 6.4 percent. More important, the study fails to recognize that hospitals, physicians, nurses and other caregivers work every day to do the right thing for their patients and provide the best care possible. We've seen that hospitals may experience financial setbacks as a result of quality improvements that they make, but caregivers do the right thing anyway because that is what's best for their patients. RICH UMBDENSTOCK President and Chief Executive American Hospital Association Washington, April 18, 2013