Medical Malpractice Crisis

Many experts believe that the United States is in the middle of its third medical malpractice crisis. The crisis is due in large part to increasing premiums for medical malpractice insurance and more and more claims being made by patients. Luckily, there are many things that are being done to try to limit the crisis, in fact the medical malpractice crisis is a big part of the malpractice tort reform that is currently before congress.

More About the Medical Malpractice Crisis

One of the things that has been done on a state as well as a federal level is to cap the damages that can be awarded to any one individual in any one case. This is important because in a lot of states and jurisdictions the damages that could be awarded to one individual were almost unlimited. This has helped to slow the medical malpractice crisis, but malpractice rates continue to rise, putting a lot of health care providers on dangerous financial ground.

What needs to be done is a total update of the laws. In fact, there is a lot of noise being made about creating federal laws that pre-empt any state laws. This will ensure that the medical malpractice laws that are out there are fair to both parties and also that each plaintiff and defendant is being treated equally. Some of the things that are being suggested in the tort reform include:

Limits on pain and suffering damages at $250,000
Three year statute of limitations to initiate any and all lawsuits involving adults
Limits on attorney’s fees in the settlement of judgment
Collateral source benefits allowable as evidence
Payment plans offered for damages of more than $50,000
Guidelines for offering or awarding punitive damages
Doing away with instructing a jury about the limitations of damage awards
Doing away with the ability to award damages against a corporation or company that has an FDA approved product

As you can see, this will help to squash the medical malpractice crisis. Because there will be limits there will be less plaintiffs and even fewer lawyers who are willing to risk their time and money on a case that is not going to pay them well. It’s not that medical malpractice suits should never take place, because in some cases they are very justified, but these proposed additions to a federal law would help to balance things a bit and ensure that all of the claims are just and warranted, keeping premiums down in the future.