Upstate New York residents who have never fallen prey to a medical professional's negligence may be under the assumption that successful plaintiffs of medical malpractice lawsuits are able to coast through the rest of their lives with their winnings. But the truth is that if you receive an award or settlement in such a case, you've already paid a heavy price with your health -- or the health or death of a loved one.
A more productive conversation about the benefits of medical malpractice lawsuits might focus on what they achieve for the health care of everyone.
An intense political debate surrounds the issue. Legislators in states across the country are under pressure to pass laws capping the amount of damages plaintiffs can seek, as well as laws that limit the time after which a victim of malpractice can file a lawsuit. Some argue that large malpractice awards raise insurance premiums for doctors and increase "defensive medicine" -- an excessive ordering of expensive tests to eliminate the chances of a misdiagnosis.
But there hasn't been any hard evidence that malpractice awards produce these results. On the contrary, sometimes a large rate of malpractice lawsuits can actually improve care. For example, in the field of anesthesiology, the medical malpractice rate has plummeted since the 1970s and '80s, when one out of every 6,000 anesthesia administrations resulted in death. Anesthesiologists at hospitals nationwide were pressed to re-examine their procedures and policies. Consequently, things improved and we no longer see the rate of deaths and brain injuries that we used to from anesthesia.
If large and frequent malpractice lawsuits can prompt that kind of change, perhaps legislators and lobbyists shouldn't be so quick to prevent them.
Source: Delaware Online, "Big malpractice awards don't increase medical costs," Steve Cohen, Aug. 27, 2013
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