Medical Negligence and Keeping Secrets

Health Leaders Media recently reported that a startlingly high percentage of health care providers fail to disclose their errors due to fears of reprisal or retaliation.

As a medical malpractice lawyer, I’ve never understood why hospitals and health care corporations don’t just admit their mistakes and make the people whole.  They would put my colleagues and me out of business in an instant while drastically reducing malpractice costs, insurance premiums, and other expenses.

It’s almost like it is a big game to these corporations.  They would rather waste hundreds of thousands of dollars covering up mistakes and paying high priced defense lawyers hundreds of dollars an hour for years of litigation than simply admitting a mistake and paying malpractice victims a fair amount for their medical bills, pain, and suffering.

I just don’t get it…

Adding Insult to Injury: More on the Medical Malpractice Myth

"Justice," as Thomas Jefferson said, "is the fundamental law of society."  Every election cycle, politicians and insurance lobbyists pepper the newspapers with calls for lawsuit "reform."  Invariably, these so-called reforms have one objective: to deprive individuals of the right to obtain justice.

The American legal tradition holds that justice involves a system of consequences that naturally derive from any action or choice.  When someone acts unreasonably, or negligently fails to act appropriately under the circumstances, the civil justice system ensures that there will be appropriate consequences.  These consequences accomplish the goal of compensating injured parties, as well as deterring wrongful conduct.  When these consequences are avoided, innocent parties are forced to bear the burden of the wrongdoer, and there is no incentive to refrain from future wrongful conduct.

In simpler terms, justice requires that we all follow the rules.  When we break the rules, we are accountable to those who have been harmed.

Election season is upon us, and so it is no surprise that the corporate interests behind the health care industry is calling for "more tort reform."  The reasoning behind this effort is that medical malpractice claims are expected to rise; thus, the industry will suffer an economic consequence.

But this begs an important question: Why minimize the consequences for negligent health care providers instead of minimizing the negligence itself?

Indeed, the real "crisis" isn't medical malpractice lawsuits, it is the increasing incidence of medical malpractice.  According to a recent report, "[s]erious medical mistakes...continue to occur despite recently implemented preventive measures."  And in another article, Dr. Martin Makaray, M.D. admits that "[c]atastrophic surgical errors are 'a lot more common than the public thinks.'"

Startingly, despite the increase of actual malpractice, patients only bring claims 22 percent of the time.  That means that nearly 80 percent of the time, health care providers who have negligently harmed their patients are not held accountable. In other words, eight out of ten times, a bad doctor breaks the rules and gets away with it.

The insurance industry and health care corporations aren't doing enough to minimize negligence, and that is why they are fighting for politicians to eliminate the consequences.  The Utah medical malpractice attorneys at G. Eric Nielson & Associates will fight to protect your rights, and fight to obtain justice for you.  We understand the medicine, and we know the law, and we will work diligently to hold negligent health care providers accountable when the break the rules.

And next time you hear about proposals to "reform" the civil justice system to benefit negligent health care professionals, consider another quote from Thomas Jefferson: "Law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of an individual."

Health Care and the Malpractice Crisis Myth

There has been a lot of focus on health care lately. Any time the government addresses the skyrocketing costs of health care, many politicians and pundits use it as a platform to perpetuate the myth of a "medical malpractice crisis," and call for reform of the civil justice system.

Interestingly, data commissioned by proponents of so-called "tort reform" reveals that radical restrictions on injured patients' rights would result in--at most--a 0.5% savings on national spending. Five tenths of a percent. Clearly, the effect of malpractice lawsuits has been grossly overstated.

Another myth perpetuated by those seeking to limit the rights of injured patients is that physicians are abandoning the practice of medicine. Once again, the data tell a completely different story. The American Medical Association just released physician data for 2008, and it shows that overall, the number of physicians in the United States increased to 954,224. This means that there is an all-time high of 309 doctors for every 100,000 people. Indeed, this data reveals that there are now twice as many physicians practicing than there were in the 1960's, when the American Medical Association began tracking numbers.

Perhaps even more startling is the fact that there are more doctors per capita practicing in states that have not limited the amount of money malpractice can receive as compensation for their injuries. In states without damage caps, there are 346 doctors for every 100,000 members of the population. Conversely, in states that have limited the amount of economic recovery, there are only 285 doctors practicing per 100,000.

These facts show that there is no significant correlation between medical malpractice lawsuits and national healthcare costs or the number of practicing physicians. Powerful insurance companies and medical industry insiders, however, have misled the public in order to maximize their profits at the expense of injured people.

On the other hand, curtailing the rights of injured persons to recover would have catastrophic financial consequences.

As medical malpractice attorneys, the lawyers at G. Eric Nielson & Associates specialize in helping people harmed by medical negligence recover fair value for their injuries. Our clients are school teachers, receptionists, firemen, carpenters, and other regular people who went to the hospital expecting to receive professional care, but who were injured due to negligence. They are not looking for a windfall, but they each deserve fair compensation for their injuries. Most of them never thought about suing a doctor or hospital until faced with the prospect of living their lives in pain, being unable to work, or worse, losing a loved one to wrongful death. These are the people who are hurt most by the insurance companies who are spending millions of dollars lobbying politicians to close the courthouse doors.