If the on-going healthcare debate over the past two years (and the three decades before) has taught us anything it’s that lawyers are to blame for all of our woes. The rhetoric goes like this: lawyers file frivolous lawsuits for minor medical mistakes so that they can line their pockets and it costs the American tax payers billions of dollars per year driving up healthcare costs and medical insurance premiums. The logic seems solid, but reality has a funny way of ruining everyone’s fun, and last week a new Harvard study brought reality back into the debate.
You see, the topic of medical malpractice has been a political issue rather than a patient’s rights issue for a long time. It’s a cycle of profit that far outweighs the verdicts awarding patients affected by medical errors. The largest lobby against medical malpractice lawsuits are that of the insurance companies. They pump millions into campaigns to stop medical malpractice while at the same time raising premiums annually even though the number of lawsuits filed and the cost of medical malpractice verdicts has essentially not changed since the 1980’s.
This means that the insurance companies are costing physicians more through premiums and driving up healthcare costs for consumers purely for profit and nothing else. Either the politicians who oppose medical malpractice and patient’s rights are misinformed about the reality of medical malpractice lawsuits or they know the reality and have chosen to lie to their constituents in order to bolster their campaign coffers.
Either way, there is now a comprehensive study that shows the real “racket” of healthcare and it has little to do with medical malpractice lawsuits.
Harvard Medical Malpractice Study
In a study conducted by Harvard University researchers and published in an article titled “Averting Medical Malpractice Lawsuits: Effective Medicine–Or Inadequate Cure?” in the September issue of Health Affairs, the researchers revealed information that may change the minds of many on how they view healthcare and the costs associated.
In the study, Michelle M. Mello, professor of law and public health at the Harvard School of Public Health, and her colleagues analyzed numerous areas of the medical liability system, including payments made to malpractice plaintiffs, defensive medicine costs, lawyer fees and other administrative costs, along with the costs of lost clinician work time.
The study revealed that the cost of medical malpractice in the United States is $55.6 billion a year, which is 2.4% of annual health-care spending. The researchers said in the article that included in the estimate is $45.6 billion in what’s known as “defensive medicine costs.” This expense is incurred when doctors prescribe unnecessary tests or treatments to avoid lawsuits.
The researchers came to the conclusion that defensive medicine not only contributes to health-care system inefficiencies, but also fails to prevent medical errors and avoidable patient injuries.
It is not lawsuits that are a drag on the system, but the system itself.
Medical Malpractice Lawsuits and Patient’s Rights
This study is an example of how misconceptions gone awry can morph themselves into truths that don’t exist. The truth is that only a small percentage of the medical malpractice lawsuits filed in the United States get through judge’s scrutiny.
A large portion of the lawsuits filed are merely thrown out of court. The reason for this is that lawsuit must first be reviewed by a judge in order to move onto the next phase of being tried in court. This stop-gap is there to save tax payers time and money from lawsuits that may be considered frivolous.
Lawsuits that are allowed to move onto trial are generally settled out of court for a fraction of what it was filed (if there is a price attached, which there often isn’t). These settlements are determined by what the insurance company is willing to pay for the alleged medical error. The reason why they choose to settle is to avoid details of the medical error to be revealed to the media, to avoid an embarrassing and expensive jury trial, and most of all to save money on what is commonly a much higher jury award.
Lawsuits that actually make it to trial must prove to a jury beyond reasonable doubt that the physician or healthcare facility was at fault for the patient’s current condition due to a preventable medical error either due to policy or negligence. This requires a tremendous amount of evidence and the legal team for the plaintiff must dismantle the institutional preconditioning of jurors through the media and political rhetoric.
It is only then that the patient receives justice for a medical error. If the jury decides that the physician or institution was at fault then they generally award a verdict that reflects the pain and suffering, future medical expenses, and lowered mortality of the plaintiff.
It is these few large rewards that the general public sees, giving them the impression that the thousands of medical malpractice cases filed every year actually go to trial and receive the same large amount. As the Harvard study shows, the exact opposite is true.
Washington Medical Malpractice Attorneys
Patients depend on the legal system to seek justice. It is because of the profit driven nature of the institutions and insurance companies that patients who have been misdiagnosed, personally injured, or wrongfully killed by the negligence of a physician or institution do not receive proper compensation.
The political system in the United States also does not protect the rights of the patients since they can’t contend with the millions of dollars in lobbying money being thrown around local and national legislatures by massive insurance companies out to limit the patient’s right to justice.
It is only with the help of experienced and skilled legal representation that patients are able to receive the justice they deserve. They only type of justice a purely profit driven institution understands is that of a monetary sum paid to those they injured to compensate for their negligence.
If you or a loved one have been severely injured or killed by suspected medical malpractice then it is important that you find experienced council that can clearly explain your rights and represent you in your fight to protect those rights. Call Phillips Webster for a consultation on your legal options.
Learn More About:
- Causes of Medical Malpractice
- Defendants in Medical Malpractice Cases
- Surgical Errors
