Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Apparently, you don't read well than. The article specifically drew the conclusion that the total cost of the tort system in medical care was less than 2% of total expenditures. More importantly, the article discussed in detail the concern that malpractice causes physicians to practice "defensive medicine" and order more tests and procedures because they supposedly are afraid of being sued if they do not. States with tort reform in place were compared with states that have no tort reform in a study involving Medicare patients. The results? Just as many tests were ordered in states with reforms in place such as California of which you speak later
Perhaps we are not reading the same CBO article.
Wade through all the statistical comparisons, then the last paragraph:
"Rules governing medical malpractice claims are one of a host of factors potentially affecting the delivery and cost of health care services in the United States. Although this analysis provides some evidence of links between tort limits and health carespending, the results are inconsistent and depend on the particular relationships and specifications tested. The mixed results also demonstrate the difficulty of disentangling any effects of tort limits from other factors that affect levels of spending for health care. CBO continues to monitor the work of other researchers and conduct its own research on the issue."
I can read quite well, thank you. That paragraph says they could not really draw any valid conclusions.
Quote:
Anecdotal. This means nothing without statistical or empirical support. The article I've quoted has looked at the very thing and they find that support non-existent.
So the fact that doctors would tell you what doctors really do is irrelevant.
Quote:
No, it comes from the pockets of other doctors insurance premiums. There is some logic at work here. Under traditional economic principles, a competent doctor will pay market prices for malpractice insurance. An incompetent doctor will pay more over time and may eventually have to leave medical practice. That's the notion of passing costs on to those who are responsible for harm. Its a basic principle of tort law. Insurers don't have to write a policy for any doctor. If someone stands out over time as a "bad apple" due to excessive claim payments. He/she won't get insurance.
Insurance premiums do not have pockets. See, I can read!
Nope, every dollar paid for liability insurance, and thus claims paid, eventually comes out of a patient's pocket. Patients pay either cash for care or they pay health insurance premiums. If their employer subsidizes the health insurance premium, that is part of the employee's compensation package. Doctors collect fees for their services and buy liabilty insurance with it. Liability premiums may go up for an individual doctor if he has claims paid against him, but the the biggest driver of premiums is the insurance company's perception of risk for the entire group. That is why there is such a big discrepancy in premiums from one geographical region to another. The same physician, with exactly the same claims history, will pay different premiums based solely on the address of his office. That is because the insurance company rates the location based on the propensity of juries in different locations to award large verdicts. Miami and Philadelphia are among the worst.
Quote:
You obviously don't much about the issue you are talking about. I practice personal injury law, but have not taken a malpractice case in the last fifteen years. My primary interest in this issue is that I dislike those who distort or exaggerate the facts to obtain an agenda of limiting patient rights and enriching corporate America at our expense.
Placing caps on "pain and suffering" and collateral source rules do not limit the ability of patients to sue. Who in "corporate America" is being enriched?
Quote:
Most importantly, I can tell you right now that pain and suffering claims are a small part of jury awards for malpractice. Most of the significant awards are for future medical expenses (which are astronomical in a catastrophic injury case) and for things like rehabilitation and even home care expenses. Sometimes, its lost earnings capacity when a client is injured so badly he can no longer work.
Why do you think someone's health insurance should be counted as a source of compensation? Unless its Medicaid, the injured person paid the premiums for it. In effect, MICRA and similar legislation thinks that private health insurance should subsidize bad medical practice. That's ridiculous on its face. I can tell you that health insurance premiums and health care costs are very high in California. So, if the docs are getting a "swinging deal" on their malpractice insurance, the consumers and patients have little to show for it.
A jury of your peers gets to say how much your case is worth. That's a fundamental right given to us by the Constitution. Its hardly radical. Juries actually refuse to award money in somewhere between 2/3's and 3/4's of all medical malpractice cases that are brought. That's hardly "giving away the store". I'll take that system any day over a system where the person who injured me gets to say what, if anything, my case is worth.
"Pain and suffering" caps and collateral source rules do not limit recovery for the items you list. Do you really think that juries should not be allowed to know that a patient has already had his medical expenses paid or perhaps has disability insurance that will pay for lost wages? Why should the patient be able to collect twice for the same expense? As a juror, I would be furious if I awarded money for something that had already been paid and I was not allowed to know about it. I would feel that I had been played for a fool.
If you want the jury to award for medical expenses that have been covered by insurance, should not that money be returned to the insurance company? Should the patient get an award for expenses he did not have to pay? That makes no sense at all.
If someone is insured, he would have been paying the premiums even if his injury had never happened, so premiums are irrelevant.
Quote:
The amount of insurance someone has is irrelevant to the amount of injury someone suffers. If you are afraid that someone injuring you will have inadequate limits of coverage there is a solution. Buy underinsured motorist coverage from your auto insurer. Its cheap and readily available if you ask.
You are ignoring my point. Should a doctor who causes an injury to a patient pay more than an automobile driver who injures someone in an accident? Assume the injuries are identical, say loss of an extremity. Right now the doctor will pay more, because typically his insurance limits are higher. Should each of us who drives a car be held to the same standard, at risk of the same verdict for pain and suffering, as an orthopedic surgeon?
Quote:
Here's another fact that ought to be of paramount importance in this debate:
1. There's a huge amount of medical malpractice that causes injury to patients and most never results in a lawsuit or even a claim for damages.
Most people really don't want to sue a doctor and will only do so as a last resort. Its the high cost of medical care that drives most people to sue. Its not that medical malpractice is causing high medical care costs as you falsely try to claim.
You may try to deny it all you wish, but our current tort system is a significant player in health care cost.
Should we have a no fault system that compensates patients based on their injury rather than who has the most eloquent lawyer?
Of course, that would direct more money toward patients' pockets and less toward lawyers' pockets, would it not?
Last edited by suzy_q2010; 10-11-2012 at 03:34 PM..
Electronic records have been around for decades... I know an orthopedic surgeon without a single file cabinet in his office...
He did loose several laptops when his office was burglarized... police were there in less than 5 minutes and it was too late.
Another Doc is on his 4th system... he is an early innovator and won a lawsuit against one of the firms and another went out of business.
It is a nice thought to simplify by going paperless... much more complex and costly then one would think...
The hospital where I work had to junk the system they had... it was no longer supported by the manufacturer... worked well and was simple and used Windows 95...
The licensing fees can easily be hundreds of thousands of dollars and then there is all the hardware upgrades and maintenance, back-up and security
Software upgrades are expensive, too. I hate having to upgrade QuickBooks just to keep the payroll features up to date, when bells and whistles are added that we do not need or use.
and being the husband of a filipina woman who's family has all come over to this country over the years, I know first hand that folks in the Phillipines are keen on getting trained in the specific areas where the U.S. has a shortage of people. My father-in-law came over as a Pharmacist/Food Scientist. Kinda funny that anyone would criticize filipinos for coming over and seeking the training that puts them in the best position to make a good life...when so many Americans are happy going to college and getting a poli sci or literature degree...
No one is critisizing them. What I'm asking is why would hospitals rather employ them than American educated nurses.
We are in a recession,we should hire Americans first before reaching into some other country recruiting nurses.
Look at the title of this discussion. It is about RNs and the high cost of healthcare. A good chunk of healthcare costs are in hospitals and much of that is in end of life care. Reducing end of life care for people who are artificially kept alive on ventilators would reduce would substantially reduce the cost of health care in this country. Any politician who would suggest would be accused of promoting death panels, as we have seen in the past.
My daughter is a two year degreed RN that works in a level 4 trauma unit. But, she has until 2024 to get her BS degree or she will be emptying bedpans as a job, which she does some of now but, fulltime. Because, studies have shown that better care is attained with 4 yr degreeed nurses. Makes sense, more education, better nurses ? And, believe you me, if you don't have a good nurse, you can die, even with a mundane illness/accident. Stupid stuff and incompetent stuff happens and they have a tremendous workload and the doctors really give the nurses a hard time, yet, they totally depend on them.
I resent the title of this thread......RN's aren't the only problem. By the way, I had a Medical Asst in my doctors office tell me by phone to pour alcohol or peroxide over a bad knee wound that was 2-3 days old......I asked her, "are you sure" ? She said, "of course I am, just do it..." I called my daughter, who checked with a wound care specialist and they almost had a cow over it......many of these MA's take a lot on themselves and often are dead wrong. This same MA tried to give me a Pneumonia shot, 3 separate times in one year......the computer wasn't being updated.
My daughter is a two year degreed RN that works in a level 4 trauma unit. But, she has until 2024 to get her BS degree or she will be emptying bedpans as a job, which she does some of now but, fulltime. Because, studies have shown that better care is attained with 4 yr degreeed nurses. Makes sense, more education, better nurses ? And, believe you me, if you don't have a good nurse, you can die, even with a mundane illness/accident. Stupid stuff and incompetent stuff happens and they have a tremendous workload and the doctors really give the nurses a hard time, yet, they totally depend on them.
I resent the title of this thread......RN's aren't the only problem. By the way, I had a Medical Asst in my doctors office tell me by phone to pour alcohol or peroxide over a bad knee wound that was 2-3 days old......I asked her, "are you sure" ? She said, "of course I am, just do it..." I called my daughter, who checked with a wound care specialist and they almost had a cow over it......many of these MA's take a lot on themselves and often are dead wrong. This same MA tried to give me a Pneumonia shot, 3 separate times in one year......the computer wasn't being updated.
I think us nurses need to unite and educate the public on what we do.
There seems to be so much misunderstanding of our roles.
I can't believe some on here want Cna's ,med techs,and Lpn's to provide highly skilled care when most have less than 2 years education. None are degreed,except maybe Lpn's. Well,I know I only had a certificate of completion when I finished Lpn school.
But hey,the cheaper the better for some people,even if it includes possible death.
So apparently,its ok for Filipinos to come over here and get jobs,but not Mexicans?
The double standard of Americans.....
We have foreign born nurses from around the Globe... no county is excluded.
It is well known that Nursing in the Philippines has a strong bias towards working in the States and my understanding is all instruction at these institutions is in English...
I presently work with Nurses from many backgrounds... including Mexico, Central American, South American, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, India, Iran, Canada, Philippines and England.
Preference is given for those bilingual Nurses and Spanish, Cantonese and Tagalog are at the top.
My daughter is a two year degreed RN that works in a level 4 trauma unit. But, she has until 2024 to get her BS degree or she will be emptying bedpans as a job, which she does some of now but, fulltime. Because, studies have shown that better care is attained with 4 yr degreeed nurses. Makes sense, more education, better nurses ? And, believe you me, if you don't have a good nurse, you can die, even with a mundane illness/accident. Stupid stuff and incompetent stuff happens and they have a tremendous workload and the doctors really give the nurses a hard time, yet, they totally depend on them.
I resent the title of this thread......RN's aren't the only problem. By the way, I had a Medical Asst in my doctors office tell me by phone to pour alcohol or peroxide over a bad knee wound that was 2-3 days old......I asked her, "are you sure" ? She said, "of course I am, just do it..." I called my daughter, who checked with a wound care specialist and they almost had a cow over it......many of these MA's take a lot on themselves and often are dead wrong. This same MA tried to give me a Pneumonia shot, 3 separate times in one year......the computer wasn't being updated.
I'm surprised... my recently retired Hospital CEO for the last 25 years is an RN by training and not even a BSRN...
The Director of OR has a two year degree and I would put her up against anyone... hard to beat 30 years of experience in all aspects of Nursing.
Several of our nurses came up through the military as corpsman...
All I can think of is you must be in an area with an abundance of Registered Nurses.
"... we have Nurses with Diplomas (Learned on the Job)"
Not sure where you got that info, but diploma graduates most assuredly are not "on the job" educated. Your CEO probably had a degree in Business or Healthcare Management.
Last edited by mm_mary73; 10-15-2012 at 09:26 PM..
... By the way, I had a Medical Asst in my doctors office tell me by phone to pour alcohol or peroxide over a bad knee wound that was 2-3 days old......I asked her, "are you sure" ? She said, "of course I am, just do it..." I called my daughter, who checked with a wound care specialist and they almost had a cow over it......many of these MA's take a lot on themselves and often are dead wrong. This same MA tried to give me a Pneumonia shot, 3 separate times in one year......the computer wasn't being updated.
I assume you told your physician about this conversation when you came to the office for your wound to be seen. The MA should not be giving out advice on her own!!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Your CEO probably had a degree in Business or Healthcare Management.
