Proposals to Make Malpractice Insurance More Affordable For Physicians

For doctors, the cost of defending a medical malpractice lawsuit is very high - not to mention the time and energy required to investigate the case.  Typically, the claims process is about 5 years from the time of injury to the time of settlement.  This has created concern for doctors which has led public policy leaders to examine ways to reduce cost and speed up the claims process. 

There have been many proposals to make medical malpractice more affordable.  Here are some of them:

• Focus on risk management - Identify what is causing the most claims and work to establish standards to improve in those areas.  Doctors can study medical malpractice prevention as part of their licensing.
  

• Focus on doctors with multiple liability cases - Doctors who have a history of malpractice are the ones driving up the cost of medical malpractice insurance, so the focus should be on taking away their licenses until they can prove that their worthy of practicing medicine again.

• Encourage doctors to communicate with patients - If something happens that was unexpected or a mistake was made, doctors should be open and honest with their patients.  This will make the claims process and investigation go much quicker.
  

• Create courts of law that specialize in medical malpractice suits - There have been bills introduced to Congress that would allow these types of courts to be set up.  Litigation will no longer be passed from judge to judge and there would be greater consistency in decision-making.

If lawmakers and medical professionals work together and stay focused on these goals, it will only be a matter of time that medical malpractice suits will decrease and malpractice insurance rates will become more affordable.