networkn:

 

In the real world it doesn't work like this. The number of complications vs the cost of having facilities to deal with it, when hospitals are fully equipped to deal with all levels of complications, makes it much more sensible and SAFE than dealing with it themselves.

 

If you end up with the hospital billing private organizations for their surgical repairs, things get very litigous and we head to the USA style healthcare system, which I don't want and I am sure most others don't as well. 

 

Also if they did this, the cost of these ops would sky rocket (think 5K) to cover it, and pratices wouldn't do this type of surgery (Because of the risks vs reward) which would lead to a fully blown out surgery departments and *massively* longer waiting lists. It would also mean that people would be less likely to have these minor surgeries and that has run on effects.

 

The system works well the way it is, and edge cases like this one, are unfortunate but don't indicate significant issue. 

 

All good points, which I hadn't considered. Nevertheless, I still think that private medicine should pay in some way for repairs to operations done by private medicine, as much because this would motivate better post-op patient care as for cost recovery.

Possibly private hospitals should pay an annual fee, based on the number of post-op ED presentations?