By Richard L. Jackson
As the leader of a company that serves over two million patients
across America, I know firsthand about the challenges many patients
face in America's healthcare system. Numerous patients have told me
they are concerned about costs that are too high and access that is
too limited. I share their concerns.
That's why I'm dismayed by our recent, landmark Jackson
Healthcare/Gallup study and our own Jackson Healthcare survey of
physicians that found 26-34% of healthcare spending is considered
medically unnecessary.
Up to a third of our healthcare spending? wasted. It adds up to
between $650- $850 billion every year. Rather than
returning those billions to patients and taxpayers, our broken
healthcare system keeps on wasting valuable dollars on treatments
patients don't need or want.
According to the studies, the main culprit of these runaway
costs is America's culture of lawsuit abuse. Our lawsuit-driven
healthcare system allows personal injury lawyers to dictate how
doctors treat patients. That's completely backwards.
On behalf of the millions of patients my company serves, I say
enough is enough. This cycle of waste needs to stop. We need real,
comprehensive reforms that will end the lawsuit abuse lottery and
remove the barriers that contaminate the physician-patient
relationship.
Like so many other healthcare providers, I joined this
profession because I believe in the importance of delivering
quality care through the fundamental physician-patient
relationship. Everything we do as healthcare providers should
protect and enhance that relationship. At a minimum, as all doctors
are called to do, we should "do no harm." No one should come
between a physician and a patient.
Unfortunately, today's healthcare system puts personal injury
lawyers squarely between physicians and patients. It forces too
many physicians to treat people like potential plaintiffs, not real
patients. Forever in fear of a frivolous lawsuit, doctors are
forced to order extra tests and treatments. In addition to putting
patients through more discomfort than they need, these
lawsuit-driven decisions drive up the costs for all patients, and
indeed taxpayers.
But it's not enough to talk about the problem. We need real,
lasting solutions. Today, physicians are personally liable for
their medical decisions, which may surprise you. Almost all of the
other major countries prohibit this, but not America. Here,
physicians are NOT legally protected through their business,
employer or insurance. Their career, reputation and savings are at
risk every day. Considering the prevalence of baseless lawsuits,
it's no surprise that they order extra tests.
Traditional tort reform, such as damage caps, will not eliminate
defensive medicine. In fact, independent reports show that in
"traditional tort reform" states, physicians practice the same
amount of lawsuit-driven medicine. While damage caps help more than
they hurt, they simply are not a comprehensive solution to the
skyrocketing costs that result from defensive medicine.
Solution
To finally root out the significant waste in our nation's
healthcare system, we need a more aggressive approach. We should
begin by incorporating successful reforms that have worked in other
areas. For instance, workers' compensation reform has drastically
lowered costs and improved the compensation system.
The solution to saving $650-$850 billion per year and ENDING
lawsuit-driven medicine requires three steps that are proven to
have worked, like in worker's compensation:
1. Eliminate personal financial liability for physicians'
unintended errors, so they can treat patients based on what's
needed, not out of fear of a lawsuit.
2. Create independent, expert medical review boards to review
claims and determine if negligent treatment has been provided to
the patient.
3. Establish separate boards to award consistent, fair
compensation to wrongfully injured patients.
Patient Benefits
- Patient Compensation Increases The awards
would no longer be split between patients, insurers, and personal
injury lawyers. Today, two thirds of the current malpractice
expenses do not go to the injured patient. 2) Physicians will be
more willing to admit mistakes which will produce more compensation
for the patients, and 3) Some patients are awarded too little
because their lawyers settle cases too quickly because they cannot
afford the cost of a long litigation.
- Quality of Care Increases As physicians
practice in a secure environment, they are able to share best
practices and lessons learned without being attacked. We would free
physicians to explore and adopt new treatments and technologies.
Today, innovation must be weighed against the personal risks
involved.
- Physician Accountability Increases Physicians
who do not follow standards of care and are deemed incompetent by
their peers will lose their ability to practice medicine. That is
sufficient incentive to keep physicians focused on quality of
care.
Conclusion
I believe this new approach would promote physician
accountability and establish medical facts - not lawsuits - as the
basis of our nation's approach to healthcare. This approach will
end the lawsuit lottery and outlandish judgments that go beyond
reason and drive up costs for everyone.
The country is incurring these excessive healthcare costs with
no patient benefit. Why not create a radical change to the system
that significantly reduces costs and provides increased amounts for
patient compensation?"
Imagine how open and cooperative our physician/patient
relationships could be if physicians were free to pursue the best
practices in medicine, while the rights of patients were
protected.
Just as important, these reforms would lower the healthcare
costs we all pay. Imagine how $6.5-$8.5 trillion in savings over
the next ten years could be used to cover the uninsured. We don't
have to wait 10 years to "bend the cost curve." We can save
$650-850 billion a year NOW!
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