Medical Malpractice Costs Account for 2% Of Health Care Expenses

Now he is again accused of socialism as he tries to grapple with the fact that health care is a problem in the United States.

The Republicans and conservatives have absolutely no desire or inclination to fix this problem and have no plan in that regard. Witness the past 8 years. Did I miss something or was the Bush administration blind to the need for health care reform. There was not even a chance that was going to happen in that administration. What, and risk angering the insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, doctors and the American Medical Association. Not likely. So how can they throw stones at a man who is trying to get the richest nation in the world, us, to a point where we provide basic health services to all our people.

Other nations, who do not enjoy our natural resources and wealth have such care, yet we do not. No it will not be an easy problem to tackle, but tackle it we must. So the fight rages on and the mantra I hear, is, of course a repeat of the Cheney mantra.....It's the personal injury lawyers fault and those malpractice suits they bring. That's whats driving the cost of health care up.

Not really, in fact a recent editorial in the New York Times while leaving open the question of the effect of malpractice suits points out the fact that caps on damages and otherwise restricting the rights of the injured to seek redress in Court is not the solution.

The bottom line is simple, malpractice suits account for, at most, 2% of the total cost of health care.

Consider the fact that most people who are injured by malpractice don't sue, many because no one told them they have good reason to do so. Certainly no one involved in the care. Also note that as most malpractice trials result in verdicts favorable to doctors, partly because it is very hard to prove that a doctor or hospital acted negligently when they control the evidence and the experts.

Its not like when someone goes through a red light and hits your car. You can come to court as can others on the street and say what they observed. In a malpractice case everything happens in a doctor's office or hospital. The only proof is the records they keep and what their personnel say.
They control the evidence.

So what do we do now, do as the conservatives suggest and strip away the meager oversight that malpractice suits bring of the medical profession and hospitals?

Ask yourself why doctors and hospitals so deeply detest these suits. The answer is clear. They are forced to give up their records, sometimes before they have a chance to do whatever they do when they"review" them. And, they are required to explain some very unexplainable results.

Yes, medicine is a difficult practice, but it does not require that so many people be the victims of bad medical practice. More importantly there must be accountability. It is no different than anything else ...with accountability comes responsibility and that brings about better care.

All that the malpractice system is a way to compensate those who are grievously injured by negligent medical care and the best way to oversee the system.

Consider all the other forms of oversight. We have government oversight. No one has to explain that that wherever that exists in this nation it is generally costly, inefficient and most problematically, ineffective.

They propose basing malpractice on compliance with certain guidelines. The problem with that is that doctors write the guidelines. They suggest tribunals. The problem there is that a doctor, a specialist in the same area of medicine as that of the doctor accused of malpractice, would need to be on the tribunal. In New York malpractice cases, years ago we had such tribunals, or as they were termed, "panels" and doctors on the panels seldom found fault by the physician.

Apologies and offers of fair compensation is suggested. This, by the same group of people who balk at testifying against their own. So now, they are going to fess up about themselves and then their insurance company will pay fairly for it. This I have to see!!!!

We have the option of self oversight. Unfortunately in the medical field that does not work. Doctors have shown that they are unwilling and unable to police themselves. In fact any personal injury or malpractice lawyer who has practiced as long as I have knows it is a lot worse than that. Respected physicians will come to court and testify to things one can certainly term as questionable, to help their brethren out of a jam. They make it clear amongst there ranks that those who testify against other doctors, even when exposing clear malpractice, are not well respected or accepted in their community.

I remember many years ago I tried the case of a woman who died due to the failure of a doctor to order a mammogram of the woman's breasts when she came to a cancer detection clinic where he worked and reported that she examines herself regularly and recently found a lump.

Two well respected doctors, a radiologist and an oncologist testified that it was not necessary, under those circumstances and thus was not malpractice not to order a mammogram. they based this on a study conducted by HIP which showed that there are risks associated with them.

But that study was concerned with the then, ongoing debate (obviously since resolved) about baseline mammograms of ALL woman who reach a certain age, not on a woman who comes to a doctor and says I am the age and religion of the highest risk group of woman with breast cancer and I have lump. I feel it!

The case settled while the jury deliberated, but I will never forget talking to the jurors afterward. They believed these doctors who testified. After all, men of such distinction would not take an oath and mislead us would they?

That is the effect of such testimony. Injustice. We need to fix our health care not take away the only oversight we have. As my fellow New York personal injury lawyers say "reduce wrongs not rights."

David Perecman
dperecman@perecman.com
http://www.newyorkpersonalinjuryblog.com/