HCM337-0704B-01 Current Legal, Ethical, and Regulatory Issues in H - Essay - 5

HCM337-0704B-01 Current Legal, Ethical, and Regulatory Issues in H - Phase 3 Discussion Board - Essay Example Medical errors are common in the field due to human involvement however the life and death situations pay no respect to human error. A 2006 report by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies study found that medication errors are among the most common medical mistakes, harming at least 1.5 million people every year [2]. With the current system each day about 125,000 suits are filed against the doctors for mal practice. Although 70 percent of those suits filed are closed without any payment, the rest who don’t, deliver hefty sums to the patients [3]. A 2001 year average payout to the patients was estimated to be $3.9 million according to the Jury Verdict Research of the Insurance Information Institute. With such a change to extract so much money out of a suing, it is any wonder who doesn’t want to win the lottery? With so many suits filed every day, the doctors are taking malpractice insurance to keep them monetarily safe from the patients. However the costs of the insurance have risen since the 1990s. The U.S. Government Accounting Office reported in 2003 that these increases were due increased losses to malpractice insurers in paying malpractice claims, decreases in investment income of insurers, and increased costs of reinsurance, which increased overall costs to insurers. Nearly all states require that physicians have liability insurance. Even in states that don’t, physicians usually have to have insurance coverage in order to get privileges to see patients at a hospital [3] In order to cap the sky rocketing premiums and costs for mal-practice insurance, most of the states have adopted Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act of 1975 (MICRA) which restricts the maximum award of a law suit. One solution to bring the cost of insurance down is by treating the patients correctly. Once the patient has no chance to complain, the law suits will become non-existent and hence this would