The Impact of High Legal Costs on Healthcare

When it comes to the healthcare industry, spending money is part and parcel of it, especially for legal fees. While there could be reasons to sue a medical professional, often it has been seen that legal costs are way too high. This definitely has an impact on the kind of service medical professionals provide to patients.

This said, some of the legal costs are as a result of the current crisis that the healthcare industry is facing. Also, with sky-high cost of health insurance, millions of people either do not have coverage or have insufficient coverage. This means that not only will these people not receive adequate care; the healthcare professionals now have to taken on the burden of high malpractice insurance. So, whether you are a doctor or layman with no health insurance, you have to take steps to protect yourself in case of medical error.

It is estimated that in the United States around $10 billion is spent on a yearly basis to cover the costs of malpractice and legal fees associated with no health insurance or inadequate insurance. Also, due to the tort system prevalent in the country, there is nearly a 50 percent increase in the awards that juries give and 40 percent increase in settlements that are done out of court on an average.

What is more frightening these days is that juries have no compunction in awarding high amount in case of a medical malpractice lawsuit. This means that doctors, nurses and healthcare providers need a better insurance system to tackle the ever increasing costs. Also, it takes a lot of money to have a team of lawyers and pay for malpractice insurance.

While it is easy to put all the blame on lawyers and law firms, the country needs to address the underlying problems prevalent in the healthcare industry. There should be laws to protect doctors and other healthcare providers from frivolous lawsuits.

Hopefully the new healthcare plan that the government has passed will assist those people who do not have adequate health coverage. Also, with the government putting a cap on the awards given for malpractice lawsuits, the cost oflegal battles should reduce. However, this is not enough. The laws should be made tougher and healthcare providers should be trained in a proper manner. Above all, hospitals need have stringent guidelines that healthcare providers have to follow in order to the chances of malpractice and legal costs.