Medicaid – Tort Reform
I was asked whether tort reform should be part of our study of Medicaid. Yes. Litigation and litigation concerns take up a big chunk of the available Medicaid monies. Therefore, we should study whether this aspect of the system can be improved, in order to provide better services to more people.
Lawyers tend to get hot and bothered when “tort reform” is mentioned. But the public shouldn’t let the heat kill the discussion. Reform simply means to do something different and better. Anyone who thinks that there is no room for improvement in medical malpractice litigation is nuts.
Talk with an ER doctor sometime about the waste of Medicaid resources caused by defensive medicine. Doctors often order up costly tests they believe are redundant or superfluous. Why? So that, just in case something freakish happens, testimony in court would reflect that the doctors jumped through lots of hoops. It’s not good medicine. It’s just costly steps taken to prepare for cross examination in those unpredictable and exceptional cases where something goes wrong.
If something goes wrong, doctors providing Medicaid services need to be ready to answer: “Can tests X, Y, and Z help diagnose that condition? Did you conduct all those tests?”
It is a plaintiff lawyer’s dream to have a doctor answer, “Yes. Each of those tests can help diagnose the condition. But test X catches it 99% of the time. Tests Y and Z can be helpful in some cases, but the tremendous cost of providing those tests for every patient would mean that many other patients would not even receive basic care in some other part of the Medicaid system. Therefore, I decided it would be a better use of scarce resources to provide top-notch service for lots of people rather than top-notch-double-redundant service for half as many people and half as many conditions.”
Maybe the State should better define how we allocate these precious resources.
Lawyers tend to get hot and bothered when “tort reform” is mentioned. But the public shouldn’t let the heat kill the discussion. Reform simply means to do something different and better. Anyone who thinks that there is no room for improvement in medical malpractice litigation is nuts.
Talk with an ER doctor sometime about the waste of Medicaid resources caused by defensive medicine. Doctors often order up costly tests they believe are redundant or superfluous. Why? So that, just in case something freakish happens, testimony in court would reflect that the doctors jumped through lots of hoops. It’s not good medicine. It’s just costly steps taken to prepare for cross examination in those unpredictable and exceptional cases where something goes wrong.
If something goes wrong, doctors providing Medicaid services need to be ready to answer: “Can tests X, Y, and Z help diagnose that condition? Did you conduct all those tests?”
It is a plaintiff lawyer’s dream to have a doctor answer, “Yes. Each of those tests can help diagnose the condition. But test X catches it 99% of the time. Tests Y and Z can be helpful in some cases, but the tremendous cost of providing those tests for every patient would mean that many other patients would not even receive basic care in some other part of the Medicaid system. Therefore, I decided it would be a better use of scarce resources to provide top-notch service for lots of people rather than top-notch-double-redundant service for half as many people and half as many conditions.”
Maybe the State should better define how we allocate these precious resources.
posted by steve u. at 6/16/2006
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1 Comments:
Thank you for your interest in items of importance to all Utah tax payers. I have followed you through some of your very important bill proposals and changes you have made. I was in medicine for 30 years and became a paralegal and got a BA in Criminal Justice. I have watched and cared about all the same issues you have brought forth even though I campaigned actively for years with the late Congressman Owens and the late State Sen. Francis Farley. I still do vote for the person. I also have contacted your office before and had an appropriate response in a timely manner. Thank you for your work; apparently, there are still some with integrity in politics.
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