It appears that some doctors in North Jersey — and I suspect elsewhere in the state — are “are asking patients to sign a contract promising not to sue for malpractice” as a way of trying to control skyrocketing insurance costs.
As The Record reported on Sunday, the contracts are a condition of treatment and replace litigation with binding arbitration as the only recourse a patient would have should the doctor not live up to his or her end of the bargain. In addition, the contracts cap pain and suffering awards.
The contract, the story says, “blames patient lawsuits for ‘ever-escalating’ malpractice insurance rates” — a dubious assumption given that the insurance crisis faced by doctors has more to do with avaricious insurance companies than anything else. the contract, therefore, does little more than potentially penalize patients — a notion The Record rightly criticizes today:
(P)atients didn’t cause this problem. Patients should not have to sign away their rights to fix it.
The contract that patients sign states that rising premium costs are caused by patient lawsuits. Evidence doesn’t back that up. From 2001 to 2003, New Jersey had a 21 percent decline in malpractice payouts. Nationally, payouts have also fallen.
Just as when New Jersey’s auto insurance rates spiraled out of control in the 1990s, the malpractice premium increases are caused by a complex mix of factors. It is not an easy fix. The Legislature was right a few years ago to reject the idea of capping jury awards for malpractice victims. But the state needs to look for other solutions, including possible limits on the size of yearly premium hikes to doctors.
In the end, the doctors are making the wrong call on this. Rather than go after patients, they should band together with them and take on the insurance companies.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
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Hank Kalet 