Combating High Medical Costs—Don’t Take It Away From Medical Malpractice Victims!

The past year or so there has been a movement to reduce the amount of money award for medical malpractice cases. Essentially, there was to be a cap placed on medical malpractice awards and some states have followed through with this. This has been coined as the tort reform, and is an attempt to balance the interests of patients harmed by medical negligence and the interests of physicians who are increasingly being found liable for larger and larger sums of money through medical malpractice lawsuits. I understand the concept behind this, tut I think this is a horrible idea!

First, as I hope you have realized from my articles recounting and evaluating the various medical malpractice cases, some of these incidents are absolutely horrifying. For example, I told the story of a patient who suffered from gangrene for weeks before passing away all because of a physician’s negligence. Another case of a physician leaving a foreign object in a patient and, when the hospital realized this, performed a second surgery on the patient to remove it but that patient died during that second surgery. These patients are suffering at the hands of negligence physicians making massive mistakes. Supporters of the tort reform want you to think that these patients have minor injuries and are suing for absorbent amounts of money through “ambulance chasing” attorneys. That is simply NOT TRUE! Medical malpractice cases are some of the most difficult cases out there and if they were so easy to sue and recover millions of dollars, there would be a LOT more medical malpractice attorneys!

Second, and more practically, one hospital was able to save $3 million in their annual budget for antibiotics after three years of carefully watching and limiting antibiotic spending. These savings occurred in various departments including the cancer center, trauma center, surgical unit, medical care intensive care unit, and the transplant service. Most importantly, the study found that there was no increase in death rates, hospital readmissions, or length of hospital stays. These three have been identified as the three most costly issues for health care spending.

There more practical solutions are what should utilized and not taking it away from the victims to make them whole again.

But what do you think? I would love to hear from you! Leave a comment or I also welcome your phone call on my toll-free cell at 1-866-889-6882 or you can drop me an e-mail at jfisher@fishermalpracticelaw.com. You are always welcome to request my FREE book, The Seven Deadly Mistakes of Malpractice Victims, at the home page of my website at www.protectingpatientrights.com.