Well fine, the patients will be treated more politely. Oh, and in Florida they will be signing arbitration agreements.

Even if one were to accept the idiotic idea that a physician practicing medicine faces no more liability risk than a salaried employee of a restaurant, or a business clerk, the fact remains that the obstetricians in Florida insist on arbitration as a condition of entering the voluntary physician-patient relationship.

You don’t like it, deliver your baby elsewhere.

A risk no different than anyone else who is performing a job, or even driving a car.

The only difference is the incredible arrogance of physicians.

If you all take risk management courses constantly, how come none of you know that the key is simply treating your patients more politely?

Still waiting for that indemnity CJD.

Until then, it’s the doctors who take the risk, it’s the doctors who have the right to do what they feel is necessary to minimize the risk to their lives and their family.

They have a choice in Florida. Be able to HAVE doctors or SUE doctors. You can let in all the Indian docs you want. They’ll be handing patients the same arbitration agreements.

The doctors take risk management courses constantly. They’re required by many malpractice insurers. Professional courses offer them as part of CME. Some states require them for licensure.

And midwives can, and do, practice independently in my state. Of course, what that means is when they get in trouble the patient is sent emergently to a doctor.

Spoken by someone who has never waited days to weeks to see a PCP (or goes to the ER for non emergent issues). Thanks but you can take your Dr R S Sharma from the University of Bangalore without a minute of US hospital training. Most Americans would not.

The doctors have no clue. Few, if any of them, have ever taken any kind of in depth study on how to minimize their risk. Few, if any, have any idea how insurance rates are set. So to say they have chosen it for a “good reason” would mean that these doctors are far removed from the norm. And the article certainly doesn’t offer any evidence to that claim.

How many doctors have ever been bankrupted by a lawsuit? And what was the basis of that claim?

Are facts a part of any of your opinions?

If the patient dies, his estate retains the claim, so that’s not really a savings.

Yet no one is proposing to move cases any faster. You still have to prepare a case for arbitration just like you would trial. And an insurer can just as easily delay arbitration.

“in the hope that he can annoy insurance company and doctor enough that they’ll pay him to go away.”

If you think this is true, I have to ask – how many cases have you settled with an insurer? And if the plaintiff’s costs are going up, his ability to settle cheaply declines.

“You think a 50% share of the patients settlement will be forthcoming in binding arbitration? It’s a less rigorous process, thus it doesn’t pay as well for the lawyers.”

The arbitrator doesn’t get to determine the attorney’s contract with the patient. I also have to ask – how many arbitrations have you been involved in?

You should probably stop opining on things you have literally no experience with.

Obstetricians’ mistakes can be costly; they can ruin an entire life and place a tremendous on a family for decades. We, as Americans, should be free to seek redress in the Courts.

If obstetricians demand arbitration, we as citizens should demand that they surrender their credentials and forbid them from practicing medicine.

As for yr fear of a dr. shortage, another lie. We’ll just let in a few more Indian docs. They appreciate our country and its freedoms.

Heck, they can have a lawyer deliver their baby. No sympathy. They want to be able to sue for tens of millions of dollars. The doctors have all, independently, chosen to require arbitration for good reason.

Seems nobody wants to voluntarily put their head on the malpractice chopping block. They don’t want to risk a career-ending, bankrupting lawsuit.

So yes, it seems the doctors “aren’t going anywhere”. What they do is they choose to arrange their lives in such a way that they can take the big target off their back. So patients who want certain high-risk services (obstetrics, neurosurgical trauma), find there are plenty of obstetricians willing to do GYN surgery, plenty of neurosurgeons willing to do elective spine surgery, but good luck finding obstetrical or trauma coverage.