Is the spiraling cost of medical care the result of over aggressive medical malpractice lawyers bringing frivolous lawsuits?
OUR OPINION
We strongly disagree with the notion that the spiraling cost of medical care the result of over aggressive medical malpractice lawyers bringing frivolous lawsuits. What this theory ignores is that the malpractice lawyer has no incentive at all to commence frivolous lawsuits, and has much to lose by following such an imprudent and improper course. First, in New York State, medical malpractice lawsuits must be certified to have merit in order to proceed. Second, medical malpractice cases are extremely expensive to litigate, particularly due to the high cost of medical experts to establish that a hospital or doctor deviated from the accepted standards of care. Third, in New York, the medical malpractice legal fees have been substantially reduced. This operates as a further disincentive for lawyers to accept marginal cases, or even clear cases of medical malpractice unless the damages sustained are very substantial.
In any system of justice dealing with medical malpractice, there will be instances where a physician or hospital is wrongly abused of malpractice, and in those instances, we believe that the lawsuit will be properly dismissed by either the judge or the jury. We believe however that under our current system of justice, many acts of medical malpractice are rejected by lawyers for the above reasons, and that frivolous or questionable cases, or those where the damages caused by malpractice are not substantial are never perused by lawyers at all.