Can Damage Caps Limit Medical Malpractice Exposure

By Denise Johnson | December 1, 2011

  • December 1, 2011 at 2:56 pm
    Jester says:
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    If you read the language of “malpractice” you’ll see the standards for proving negligence are very high. Too many money grubbing people confuse malpractice with an unfortunate outcome. Even when a medical professional does everything right, things can go wrong. They shouldn’t get penalized for that. Based on the relatively small amount of average settlement, most of these claims are B.S.

  • December 1, 2011 at 3:38 pm
    The Other Point of View says:
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    LOL. What do you expect the NEJM and AMA to say? That we don’t need tort reform? Give me a break. That’s like the prisoners saying the jail doesn’t need bars.

    How about a reporting on study from someone other than those who would beenfit from the outcome?

  • December 2, 2011 at 10:56 am
    vince phillips says:
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    Perhaps an omission or correction in an otherwise excellent article: I do not beliee Pennsylvania has caps on non-economic awards for med mal or anything else.

  • December 4, 2011 at 5:16 pm
    michaelend says:
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    What this story does not mention is the number of people who die or are injured every year by medical negligence. A recent article in Health Affairs tells that there are as many as 187,000 deaths caused by adverse events in hospitals and 6.1 million injuries, both in and out of hospitals, caused by adverse events each year. Last year, there were only 9,894 payments made to patients injured by doctor negligence, as tracked by the National Practitioner Data Bank. Thus, only an extremely small percentage of injured patients are compensated for their injuries. One of the reasons for the small number of payments is that insurance companies for doctors have made it extremely difficult for patients to win such cases, thereby making it difficult for injured patients to find a lawyer to take their case. The insurers are willing to spend whatever sum of money it takes to defend the cases. Jurors are very much inclined to let the doctor off the hook, so that last year one report of an organization of medical malpractice insurers showed that the doctors and their insurers won over 90% of the cases that went to trial. Plaintiff lawyers do not spend hundreds of hours of time and tens of thousands of dollars taking “frivolous” cases to trial. Lawyers carefully screen the cases they pursue. They cannot afford to take cases to trial if they think they will lose. The high percentage of patient losses at trial is attributable to the success of the public relations campaign of the AMA, the American Tort Reform Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other similar organizations telling the American public that there are too many lawsuits, too many frivolous lawsuits, that medical negligence lawsuits increase medical costs, and other such inaccuracies. The truth is that there are relatively few such lawsuits, very few frivolous lawsuits, and the lawsuits do not have a significant impact on the cost of medical care.

  • January 30, 2012 at 9:00 am
    Hmmm says:
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    Ms Johnson and anyone else who agrees with Medical Malpractice Caps for noneconomic purposes. Let a couple of doctors provide neglect care for your mother, to the point of not even providing basic care when critical care is needed, resulting in her death. Your mother….the one you love so much and just the thought of losing her causes your heart to ache. I think that you would feel differently. What does the doctor seriously have to lose? The most they will be sued for is $500,000 and the insurance will take care of that. What about the family of the lost victim? They will pay 40-50% of their award so $250,000 and then the attorney’s expenses of $150,000 (if goes to court) – that leaves $100,000 that most beneficiaries will split – In our case by four that leaves $25,000 – Our mother is gone – tragically, we are awarded a poor pentance for her life, the doctors continue to practice and further realize that no matter what they do nothing can be done to them. Eventually, people will say it is not worth it and let these arrogant (and believe me there are some great doctors), but there are arrogant, uneducated, worthless doctors as well. All I have to say – is eat your apple a day and hope that you can keep the doctor out of your life. A lawsuit is an extreme amount of work for a family, causing years of continued sadness and suffering, and really resolves little – in all cases particularly where there was minimal income for the victim the doctor gets away with it no matter how bad or serious the situation.



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