In the small Arkansas town of Camden close to our home the media recently gave tribute to an elderly physician from this town. He's in his 90's now and continues to work because he loves what he does. However, he barely makes his expenses, essentially working for nothing. Why? Liability insurance costs him over $100,000 per year. He doesn't have a lot of patients and understandably works on a limited schedule.
He's not my doctor but my heart goes out to him and other doctors like him. I admire him for continuing to service patients, some who, by the way, described him in glowing terms. There are probably other doctors in rural areas who simply cannot afford to practice at all because of the insurance cost.
I realize the importance of being able to make a physician responsible for his actions. Using a court of law can serve that purpose. But cannot we, the consumers, have the freedom of choice in such matters? I mean, suppose a physician had the option of practicing under some type of non-liability mode. His office would make it clear that he carries no such insurance and you, the customer, would need to sign some type of waiver before he could administer care. If he did blunder when administering care to you or yours, tough luck. You're on your own.
I am interested, of course, in my U.S.A. Do other countries do anything like this?
What do you think?
Fats
Waiver possible, Physician liability?
by Fatfreek 3 Replies latest watchtower medical
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Fatfreek
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bebu
Doctors are supposed to be compassionate, not greedy. Insurance companies are expected to be concerned, not indifferent. Patients are not supposed to exploit the system to become millionaires through frivolous lawsuits. Malpractice lawyers are generally understood to be ambulance chasers, however, and they do little work to change that perception.
Put a cap on pain and suffering damages, because lives are priceless. The damage of mega-million-dollar awards go far beyond the doctor, and touches the rest of society's access to healthcare by driving prices up for everyone.
We've lost a lot of local doctors in our state. And there are no ob-gyns available for new patients for over 100 miles of here, because of the malpractice insurance issue.
bebu
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Scully
Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that all too often insurance companies prefer to settle claims against physicians (or other professionals who carry errors and omissions or malpractice insurance) rather than actually investigate and defend the practitioners who have NOT done anything wrong.
Mr. Scully carries E&O insurance as part of his business and has similar problems with premiums escalating due to the fact that the insurer is more interested in getting the claims out of the way and settling frivolous suits rather than defending his practice and the contract that his customers sign. I don't know how many times customers have sued him for the cost of major problems that he told them existed, and they ignored his professional opinion anyway. To me, that's just plain stupid to hold him accountable for an issue that he identified at the time of his inspection; yet the insurance company would settle despite the fact that there was no error or omission on his part.
From a business standpoint, if someone were to conduct a search of a practitioner and see that there had been X number of claims settled, it looks quite negative and has a negative impact on his reputation too. He's finally taking my advice and letting the cases get to court, and then countersuing for costs. Eventually people who have a mercenary interest in making frivolous claims are going to figure out that he is not an easy target.
As far as physicians go, I think it's also up to the patient to play an active role in their own care. If a problem isn't being fixed, keep going back and asking for referrals to specialists until you get a satisfactory result. And if the doctor is screwing around with your care and not advocating for you, then it's time to report him/her to the licencing board.
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bebu
Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that all too often insurance companies prefer to settle claims against physicians (or other professionals who carry errors and omissions or malpractice insurance) rather than actually investigate and defend the practitioners who have NOT done anything wrong.
I heartily agree with this!
bebu