Do We Need Medical Malpractice Tort Reform?

John McCain’s proposed policy on health care includes the following goal: “Pass tort reform to eliminate frivolous lawsuits and excessive damage awards.” However, the question remains: just how many “frivolous” lawsuits are there, really? And do these frivolous lawsuits actually threaten doctors and lead to an increase in the cost of medical care?

According to a Harvard study, only one out of every eight patients with a verifiable claim of medical malpractice actually filed suit. This and subsequent studies showed that between 3.7 and 17.7 % of all patients experience complications caused directly by the negligence or mistakes of doctors. This includes estimates that between 44,000 and 98,000 patients died every year as a result of these complications.

Nor are these one-in-eight lawsuits outrageously compensated. The verdicts rarely compensate victims for the real cost of their injury. If a person has the wrong leg removed, how much money is necessary to get that person his or her leg back? The answer is that no amount of money can compensate the victim. And, since both doctors and hospitals (rightly) classify this as a “never” event because it should never happen, it seems that no amount of penalty is too high for something that should never be allowed to happen.

And objections that the costs of frivolous lawsuits are sufficient to make up for all the suits not filed don’t hold water. A study by the University of Missouri shows that the vast majority of lawsuits are properly compensated. According to the study, patients were only likely to receive a major settlement if there was clear evidence of a mistake by the doctor. Lawsuits lacking evidence were dismissed, dropped, or settled for a “nuisance fee,” usually less than the cost the patient paid for the procedure.

Actually, the big crisis in healthcare is ensuring quality care. With about 100,000 Americans dying every year as a result of medical malpractice, it is becoming the number one preventable cause of death for Americans, killing roughly twice as many as automobile accidents.

Some things are being done, however. Recently, new Medicare guidelines have been instituted that mean the government will not pay for the expense of complications relating to the following events:

• Surgical object(s) left in patient during surgery

• Preventable air embolism

• Complications from being given wrong blood type

• Urinary-tract infections associated with catheters

• Pressure ulcers (bed sores)

• Infection associated with vascular catheters

• Patient falls

• Infection at the surgery site following coronary-artery-bypass graft surgery

Until now, hospitals expected patients to pay for the procedures in which their loved ones suffered as a result of gross incompetence by doctors and hospital staff. Now, though, with the government refusing to pay for these mistakes, maybe you won’t have to, either.