Malpractice payments have never had any impact on the cost of medical care or the cost of delivering medical care. It is partly driven by the cost of the malpractice insurance and that is driven by the expenses incurred in defending lawsuits as well as the costs of the judgements/settlements themselves. Another cost that drives the cost of medical car up is the cost of procedures performed to avoid a claim of malpractice.
You would think that the IJ would actually read and think about what they print.
Must be the same group that determined that cow farts were a threat to the ozone. 30% of all medical care expense goes for testing purposes, much of it deemed unnecessary except to ward off lawyers.
Doctors run numerous tests because of the fear of lawsuits. MRI’s, Cat Scans, you name it they order it. Tort Reform varies a lot by state. We had it in Texas and doctors started moving here to escape from the blue states who haven’t done it. Add all the red tape associated with Obamacare coming in and doctors can’t stay up with it.
Is the data cited in this article accurate? Fewer than 10,000 payments by doctors nationwide in 2011 would mean an average of fewer than 200 per state. I find that hard to believe in light of the fact that I bet my own medium sized firm in Maryland itself certainly handled more than 50 such cases in which payments were made on behalf of doctors and were therefore reported to the data bank. And note this specifically does not include payments by hospitals… why was that left out of the article? This “conversation” also specifically avoids the mention of even the topic of the cost of defensive medicine, which all med mal defense lawyers know is a significant factor in increasing costs. In other words, this appears to be a very one-sided article that cites cherry-picked data in order to read a desired conclusion.
Would it be possible that they are referring to payments by certian companies or maybe a certian type of malpractice lawsuit? I am not familuar with this area, I am just trying to figure out why the information they have provided may not be complete.
Heaven forbid any of you suffer injury at the hands of a incompetent doctor, and have to then deal with “tort reform” and all the roadblocks placed in the way of an injured patent who seeks to recover for the harm caused. Instaed of resticting rights, how about removing doctors who are incompetent? Many studies have shown that a small group of doctors are repeat offenders, responsible for a large portion of claims. Plus, while I have no doubt that some of the “defensive medicine” claims are correct, the purpose of tort law is to encourage people to exercise care and caution, and if doing another test is appropriate under that standard, then we should be thankful that the law encourages that behavior — just like the law encourages us to practice “defensive driving” and stopping at a red light or stop sign even though we can see that no one is coming. That, too, is a “cost,” but one that benefits society.
Yeah, but isn’t the more important “cost” of malpractice the amount of possibly unneeded care people get so doctors can avoid getting sued?
Yeh….along with the necessary costs to defend qeustionable cases brought on by greedy attorneys out there “helping us”.
Malpractice payments have never had any impact on the cost of medical care or the cost of delivering medical care. It is partly driven by the cost of the malpractice insurance and that is driven by the expenses incurred in defending lawsuits as well as the costs of the judgements/settlements themselves. Another cost that drives the cost of medical car up is the cost of procedures performed to avoid a claim of malpractice.
You would think that the IJ would actually read and think about what they print.
Well said. (as relates to IJ- yes, it is definitely left of center).
For a left of center publication they seem to do OK with a primarily right of center audience.
Must be the same group that determined that cow farts were a threat to the ozone. 30% of all medical care expense goes for testing purposes, much of it deemed unnecessary except to ward off lawyers.
Doctors run numerous tests because of the fear of lawsuits. MRI’s, Cat Scans, you name it they order it. Tort Reform varies a lot by state. We had it in Texas and doctors started moving here to escape from the blue states who haven’t done it. Add all the red tape associated with Obamacare coming in and doctors can’t stay up with it.
Is the data cited in this article accurate? Fewer than 10,000 payments by doctors nationwide in 2011 would mean an average of fewer than 200 per state. I find that hard to believe in light of the fact that I bet my own medium sized firm in Maryland itself certainly handled more than 50 such cases in which payments were made on behalf of doctors and were therefore reported to the data bank. And note this specifically does not include payments by hospitals… why was that left out of the article? This “conversation” also specifically avoids the mention of even the topic of the cost of defensive medicine, which all med mal defense lawyers know is a significant factor in increasing costs. In other words, this appears to be a very one-sided article that cites cherry-picked data in order to read a desired conclusion.
Would it be possible that they are referring to payments by certian companies or maybe a certian type of malpractice lawsuit? I am not familuar with this area, I am just trying to figure out why the information they have provided may not be complete.
Heaven forbid any of you suffer injury at the hands of a incompetent doctor, and have to then deal with “tort reform” and all the roadblocks placed in the way of an injured patent who seeks to recover for the harm caused. Instaed of resticting rights, how about removing doctors who are incompetent? Many studies have shown that a small group of doctors are repeat offenders, responsible for a large portion of claims. Plus, while I have no doubt that some of the “defensive medicine” claims are correct, the purpose of tort law is to encourage people to exercise care and caution, and if doing another test is appropriate under that standard, then we should be thankful that the law encourages that behavior — just like the law encourages us to practice “defensive driving” and stopping at a red light or stop sign even though we can see that no one is coming. That, too, is a “cost,” but one that benefits society.
Very interesting article on repeat offenders:
http://www.citizen.org/congress/article_redirect.cfm?ID=8308
I agree these hacks need to be stopped.