Medical Malpractice, Health Care, and YOU!

A recent annual check-up got me thinking about healthcare.  Healthcare reform is all the rage right now.  But if you are like me (not a doctor and/or someone with limited medical background) the current debate is often too confusing to follow and you are not sure exactly what to think.

Medical malpractice and tort reform are one such aspect of the debate where you see the convergence of medical and legal issues searching for a solution.  To put it simply, medical malpractice has to do with professional negligence on the part of the care provider that results in some type of harm to the patient.  Because of these potential for errors, medical practitioners carry malpractice insurance to help offset the costs of a potential problem.

Doctors argue that frivolous lawsuits and high jury verdicts have driven up the cost of malpractice insurance to such levels that some doctors refuse to practice the more litigation-ridden areas of their profession or have resorted to conducting costly unnecessary test and procedures to further shield themselves from lawsuits.  While it is true that some attorneys have made millions on medical malpractice suits, many lawsuits bring with them legitimate claims that should continue to have a voice in the American legal justice system.

LegalMatch provides attorneys for both sides of a medical malpractice claim.  The most common situations in which this is found are:

• When there has been a failure to perform surgery
• Delay in treatment
• Failure to properly explain medical procedure or potential side affects
• Prescription errors
• Failure to properly diagnose a medical condition
• Improper treatment

No matter what side of the debate you are on, there are solutions.  As a NY Times article put it, “the goal is not to reduce malpractice lawsuits, it is to reduce malpractice.”  But that is the difficulty: to develop a system that allows providers, doctors, and patients to maintain a trust in the health care system while keeping costs down.  Now we just need to do it.