Changes to malpractice liability laws do not result in the promised cost savings and have ignored the effect on patient safety.

The purpose of our tort system as it relates to medical care is to provide compensation to those injured through the fault of others.  It is intended that through this mechanism, there will be an incentive for the health care practitioners, including hospitals, doctors and nurses, to improve the quality of the care they give their patients.  For the last 30 years, there have been calls to change our tort system.  These changes almost always make it more difficult for those who have been injured by medical negligence to be fairly compensated for their injuries.  To garner support for these changes, they are characterized as reforms which will make health care better and cheaper.  If giving up our rights to be fairly treated when we are injured will lead to a better America, maybe the trade is a fair one.  Unfortunately, the facts suggest otherwise. 

Today, these restrictions to  our rights have been on the books long enough for there to have been studies of their effectiveness in lowering costs and improving care.  Recently, the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the most highly respected medical journals in the country, reviewed these studies.  Their conclusion is as follows:

Our review yielded two main conclusions. First, evaluations of traditional tort reforms have remained heavily focused on metrics related to liability costs, with most care-related measures receiving relatively short shrift. Second, the evidence reveals that, with few exceptions, traditional tort reforms have not proved to provide many improvements in these liability metrics.

What the reviewers are saying is that the “reforms” have not lived up to their promises of saving money and reducing health care costs.  They certainly have not made patient care better or more affordable.  Just look at the statistics concerning people injured in the health care system.  Then just look at the cost of your medical insurance.  Read the whole article here.

http://www.nejm.org/health-policy-and-reform

Posted in Doctors, Hospitals, Nurses |