No malpractice contracts

Physicians are resorting the desperate measures in the fight against malpractice premiums:

If you want to see Ridgewood gynecologist Ruth J. Schulze, you’ll have to sign a contract promising never to sue her for malpractice.
The veteran physician and a dozen other gynecologists in New Jersey require the contracts as a condition of treatment.
Schulze sees it as the only way to control the rising malpractice premiums that have put some of her brethren out of business. But patient advocates and legal experts are troubled by the idea of asking patients to sacrifice their legal rights — and they worry that the practice could spread.
By signing the contract, patients forfeit their right to a jury trial and agree to limits on pain and suffering awards and punitive damages. The contract blames patient lawsuits for “ever-escalating” malpractice insurance rates.

(via Tim Dawes at Interplay)

Comments

Anonymous
is this really any different than the form that some lawyers get their clients to sign allowing law firms to take a larger chunk of the plaintiff’s award than allowed by law? sounds like it is giving up rights either way…
mike
Anonymous
If it bothers you then don’t go see them. Sheeesh.
Gasman
Merely reflects market pricing. The comodity of medical care has many costs that wind up in the price. The cost of insurance for my practice amounts to about $50 per anesthetic. If the bill were broken down into its component costs and the patient could waive the insurance as is done at any rental care desk then how many would. How many patients would pay $50 now (before the anesthetic) so that they could sue later if they did not like the result?
The reality is many people do not need malpractice insurance as they are already covered by general policies for health, life, and disability.
Malpractice insurance could become like those little kiosks in airports where flyers can bet 1:10,000 odds that their plane will crash. The payout is a sucker’s bet since the actual odds are less than 1:1,000,000. The insurer pays out one penny on the dollar.
Anonymous
Doctors can’t have it both ways. If medicine is commodity, then you should be able to bargain away liability. HOWEVER, the bargaining between doctor and patient is not equal because doctors have a LEGALLY PROTECTED guild–that protects doctors from competition and limits their supply. Eliminate ALL credentialing requirements if you allow negotiable liability. What will likely emerge is what you have in contractors. Some contractors are bonded (and cost more); others are not (but are cheaper).
Anonymous
These sort of pre-litigation waivers only hold up in court if they are specifically provided for in the statutory or case law of a given state. Otherwise, they are generally not worth the paper they are printed on and are overturned. Anyone desiring to use such a waiver would first need to determine if they are allowed in a given state.
Josh
Bonded vs Non-Bonded Surgeons? I don’t think thats a choice any pt really wants.
Anyone know which states allow this by law? what about medical mediation?
Anonymous
So how much did her insurer promise her rates would go down for every patient who signed it?
Isn’t that the key issue? If insurance rates were primarily driven by claims made, I would think a lot.
Anonymous
Non-bonded surgeons? LOL
It’s laughable that anyone would think anybody with a GED could put in a hip replacement because they read it in a book. Do you set up the non-bonded surgeon trailer next to the funnelcake stand or skee-ball at the local county fair?
Anonymous
Americans love to bitch about anything. If you don’t like it go elsewhere.
Anonymous
Oh that old canard, the “legally protected guild” (don’t forget the caps lock, makes a lie seem truer).
It is the idiot’s claim.
I figure I’m about as protected as the electrician or the plumber, since we all have to have a license. And legally protected from whom? Other doctors? Not. Or from what, “competitors” who have no training but might like to set themselves up to offer snake-oil remedies? There still seem to be all sorts of people selling that kind of stuff.
The public doesn’t seem to be clamoring for care provided by those who cannot convincingly show they have education and training in medicine any more than they want fake bridge “engineers” providing designs for roadway bridges they have to use every day.
Anonymous
Getting rid of credentialing is pretty absurd. I like to shoot guns and ride fast in cars. Why can’t I be a highway patrol and bypass all of this school crap. All I have to do is read a book and pass a test right?
Anonymous
Think of it as a doctor “prenup”. You can always see or marry the next one down the line.
Anonymous
Think of it as pointless lobbying by a physician who doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Because that’s what it is.
Anonymous
OK Cochise, enlighten us with that enlarged cranium of yours. Going to a OBGyn and getting married are both elective. You don’t have to do either. People have been having babies for thousands of years, same with getting married. It’s a free country. Most married couples don’t sign one but maybe they should. Most physicians don’t have their patients sign one, but maybe they should. I have all of my patients sign consents from medical justice, otherwise they can go on down the road. Don’t let the door hit ya, where the good lord split ya.
Anonymous
Your comparison to getting married is odd, and really makes no sense. What’s more, to be enforceable, a prenup requires full disclosure on both sides- they ain’t enforceable if you forget to tell your wife about the $500K in Tbills you have. Is the doc giving full disclosure of every claim she’s ever had, every time she’s been negligent, etc.?
When she cries about her insurance premiums but then won’t tell exactly how much they are, I doubt she’s any more honest when it comes to direct dealings with her patients.
Not going to hold up. You have you patients sign “consents from medical justice”?
Anonymous
I am confident that they would never hold up in my state because most of the state legislator’s are lawyers and THAT guild is never going to let go of the revenue to be made pursuing and defending tort claims.
The argument will be that the patient was under duress, etc etc.
As a matter of fairness, I see no problem with it at all as I sign similar agreements with nearly institution that I do business with. As long as the first contact is elective, there is no duress. In my specialty, there is no guild. I do psychiatry. Every other medical specialty can Rx prozac and talk to people. In this state, the psychologists can RX meds too. Then there are social workers, LPC’s who can hang up shingles to talk to people. In addition to all other physicians and psychologists, people can and often do order their meds over the internet without seeing anyone.
So If people see me, it is because the chose to see me. Why shouldn’t we be free to set whatever terms are mutually satisfactory to us?
Anonymous
There is no psychiatric guild? Umm. . . I can’t prescribe. That’s legal protection for the head shrinks of whatever flavor. That legal limitation is particularly egregious given the questionable effectiveness of most psychotropics in the treatment of, say, depression. The medicalization of depression is a superb example of how costs are increased to consumers–doctors and other healthcare professionals get richer–with little benefit to anyone else.
The purpose of medmal is to guarantee a level of quality. As “professionals” the law requiresyou to behave in a certain way. If you argue that you should be able to provide doctoring services without that guarantee, then why should you prevent anyone else from providing such services.
Anonymous
>>”The purpose of medmal is to guarantee a level of quality. “
No. The purpose of medmal is to seek awards of money. Quality has absolutely nothing to do with that. Only trial lawyers would have you believe otherwise.
The purpose of government licensing with credentialing is to guarantee a level of quality.
Anonymous
Anon 11:02. You sound like a psychologist that I know who consistently and loudly proclaimed that psychotropics were a scam and don’t work–and then the next thing I knew she was lobbying for Rx privleges for psychologists proclaiming the need of the public to have more access to these treatments????
Of course, there is no longer any social penalty for hypocrisy any longer, so if conscience isn’t a problem . . .

No malpractice contracts

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