In the quest to keep medical costs down, many people have advocated limits on the damages that can be awarded in court cases following medical injuries. Proponents of tort reform say these caps will allow doctors to perform less "defensive medicine" — the ordering of many unnecessary tests just to cover themselves in case they are sued. This would drive down overall medical costs while also allowing doctors to pay lower insurance premiums, passing those savings on to the patient.
But in this very sterile discussion, the patient's rights and safety are either overlooked or entirely ignored. By shifting the focus from limits on money damages and focusing on putting patient safety first, doctors can lower the overall cost of treatment and still shield themselves from financial liability.
Medical Malpractice Lawsuits Aren't The Issue; Malpractice Is
When viewed through the lens of patient safety, it is easy to see that tort reform is counter-productive. Everyone is in favor of lowering overall medical costs. But, the focus should be on lowering the frequency of mistakes, not the ability to financially recover by those who have been made victims of medical mistakes.
The current system is in need of reform, just not at the expense of victims. There is little incentive for doctors or other medical providers to be straightforward with patients or their families when a mistake or 'adverse medical event' occurs. Many more patients are harmed by medical negligence than actually ever file suit; one study reports that only two to three percent of those injured pursue the professional who caused the injury. Of those that do pursue their professional malpractice claim, only about half recover any money. The malpractice victims are not creating the problem.
A system that encourages secrecy does little to prevent the same mistakes from being made over and over again, whether by the same doctor or in the same scenario at facilities throughout the U.S. Limiting the financial recovery for victims of medical malpractice does not account for the mistakes that injured the 98 percent who did not pursue a malpractice claim.
A Look At a New System: Changes Made by Anesthesiologists
Over the last 20 to 30 years, anesthesiologists as a group have focused on studying patient care and outcomes and have cut the number of deaths attributed to their care from one death per 5,000 cases to one death per 200,000 to 300,000 cases. The focus on patient care and safety has lead to the reduction in malpractice premiums that many tort reformers say is necessary to control medical costs.
Medical malpractice insurance premiums for anesthesiologists used to be among the most expensive in the medical field, but today, while nearly all other types of doctors pay more for insurance, anesthesiologists pay 37 percent less, adjusted for inflation, than they did 20 years ago.
Overall malpractice costs are estimated to run as high as $24 billion dollars, or approximately two percent of overall health care costs, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Even if tort reform were to lead to slashing malpractice costs by half, that would still only amount to a one percent savings in health care costs nationwide. Tort reform is not the answer to skyrocketing health care costs.
Patients' rights and patient safety should be at the forefront of the health care debate. Ensuring the safety of those who seek medical assistance will be a step much closer to cutting health care costs than ensuring that medical professionals have limited exposure to liability for their mistakes.
