Government Strategy That Decreases Number of Lawsuits For Medical Malpractice

Some people lack extensive knowledge of the law; therefore, those same people often hesitate to sue someone, even someone that has harmed them. That level of hesitancy can become quite strong, if that harm seems to have been done by a physician. Still, there are also those that seem to jump at the chance to sue a doctor.

Consider what could happen if doctors lived in a place where lawsuits against members of the medical profession got filed on a regular basis. In that instance, the frequency of such filing might dissuade students from studying medicine. Eventually, the medical schools in that locality would have few graduates.

Consequently, that same locality would eventually face a physician-shortage. Fortunately, government leaders in the same area would have access to information on a counter-measure. Those same leaders could can work to keep a forecasted shortage from becoming a reality.

The strategy available to government leaders

The worried leaders could arrange for some of the government’s funds to subsidize creation of a means for protecting doctors from the effects introduced by multiple lawsuits. That means could be a government association. The same association might be granted permission to charge doctors with insurance fees.

Those same fees could be based on a combination of factors. Each of them could reflect the location in which the insured physician was located and the type of medicine that he or she practiced. Following collection of the calculated fee-amounts, the collected money could be used to increase the store of funds in the protective association.

With financial backing from such funds, the protective association could strategize some strong defensive measures, which might help threatened doctors. For example, the association might elect to reject many court settlements, regardless of the victim’s injuries. By the same token, the government association might ask permission to demand a payment from any party that lost a medical malpractice lawsuit.

Alternative strategies

Obviously, a court system would not be too popular, if it started asking all those that lost a court case to come forward with a payment. In place of that unpopular approach, a government might place a cap on the maximum damages recoverable in specific cases. Such a measure would put a lid on the number of cases for which punitive damages were sought. A personal injury lawyer in Kitchener will be abletoassist the accident victims with a chance to recover damages.

Which cases should be exempted from a cap, if one were used? The suggested approach has been tried, and during the course of such trials, two specific types of cases were exempted. Both of them were cases where a jury might feel motivated to see that the victim got a large compensation.

In some of the exempted cases the jury was asked to consider evidence that proved that the defendant had exhibited a show of malice, while performing the act of negligence. Other examples of an exempted case showcased those times when a defendant had chosen to carry out truly reprehensible conduct.