pass laws to protect physicians from frivolous lawsuits or at least limit damages
Several US states have harsh caps on medical malpractice damages. They still see massively-rising medical costs. And in uncapped states the rate of growth in malpractice damage awards hovers very close to the rate of inflation of the US dollar.
Which sort of destroys the argument that "frivolous lawsuits" and massive damage awards drive medical costs in any significant way.
It's less the actual damages as much as it the defensive medicine that occurs because of the constant risk. If you show up with the flu, but it could be some weird disease that shows up in an MRI, the incentive for the doctor is to get you an MRI.
I used to believe in caps, but I think we could do better than that. Create a no-fault insurance market that pays people without the hassle of civil trials. That has the potential to allow medical professionals to be more open and honest about mistakes they make (similar to the aviation industry). That, in turn, would allow for data-driven decisions about how to make the biggest improvements for the lowest dollar amount.
Oh, and while we're at it, how about a self-driving unicorn that runs on rainbows...
100% agreed with this. This is an insightful comment. people have no idea how much practice patterns would change if less defensive medicine could be practiced. So much of the inconvenience of medicine exists because the standard of care is extremely conservative to ensure minimal risk of litigation. The few states that have malpractice caps really doesnt change anything--those states just provide a good practice environment in rare situations, but doesn't change the way that standard medicine is practiced because that is developed out of state as a national consensus.
If MRIs were priced at what most people would call reasonable, then that defensive practice wouldn't be as big of a problem. We've seen prices of $100 to 300 mentioned for some other countries.
Its not about frivolous lawsuits as much as defensive medicine which is the standard of care. For example if you come in to the Emergency department with a traumatic brain bleed (even a tiny spec on your scan), then you end up getting another scan at 6 hours, likely platelets since you took a baby aspirin that day, a very expensive neurosurgery evaluation, keppra for 2 weeks, and continuous monitoring, even though by all metrics you have a very benign pathology. Why? Because this is the standard of practice. Not because it makes any sense.
also, keep in mind that the factor that matters the most for practice patterns (especially defensive ones which drive up cost) is not where a doctor practices, its where a doctor trains. Since most doctors train in high risk litigation environments, and most standard of care procedures are developed with defensive practices in mind, the standard of care is high cost high utilization medicine.
I don't need to make an argument. Call your doctor and ask him how much he pays for his malpractice insurance.
I used to know some people in healthcare tangentially and the answer is $50,000 to $250,000 A YEAR depending on specialty etc.
Sometimes the practice will pay these costs for you, so the doctor might not be paying it directly but the money is coming from somewhere.
My friends told me malpractice insurance was generally about a third of your salary. And this includes people like pharmacists and physicians assistants too. So if much higher than world average doctor salaries in the US are any part of the reason for high medical costs, lawsuits are a third of that
I used to know some people in healthcare tangentially and the answer is $50,000 to $250,000 A YEAR depending on specialty etc.
And... inflates at a rate which appears to be completely unrelated to malpractice damage awards. So calling for caps and limits on malpractice suits would not solve it.
Consumers need protection from doctor's mistakes, plain and simple. I don't need to make an argument either. Call someone who has lost their child to a doctor's mistake.
Several US states have harsh caps on medical malpractice damages. They still see massively-rising medical costs. And in uncapped states the rate of growth in malpractice damage awards hovers very close to the rate of inflation of the US dollar.
Which sort of destroys the argument that "frivolous lawsuits" and massive damage awards drive medical costs in any significant way.