Medical Malpractice: Costs & Consequences - Research Paper

Introduction

Medical malpractice happens when a professional of health care neglects the provision of necessary and appropriate treatment, forgets to take required actions or when the health care provider give wrong treatment which causes harm or even kills the patient.

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The direct costs of medical malpractice are usually seen through the products and services being offered. They include; Increase of health care practitioners insurance incentives, rise in the amount of fees patients, are required to pay about professional services (Schiff, Nieva, Griswold, Leydon, Ling, Biondolillo, and Singer 2016). Under the increase of health care practitioners' premiums in relations to the rise in medical malpractices, the health care practitioners being at risk of losing their insurance covers or at some point their insurances end up covering for their errors accordingly.

In relations to the rise in payments that the patients have to incur due to the availability of medical malpractice, it is usually an inconvenience to them since at some point they are not usually prepared for any direct costs of malpractices (Schiff et al. 2016). The increment of the patients' payable fees for professional services usually affects both the patients and the practitioners directly.

When the practitioners decide of stopping what is to be done to the patients, they may lead to the diminution of the available specialist within the area hence depriving societies the access to experts and specialists. The direct costs of medical malpractices may lead to, disabilities, loss of opportunities for the doctors, infertility and some chronic pains that a patient may start experiencing as times go by.

The indirect costs of medical malpractice are: the increase in risk litigation may lead to the performance of unnecessary medical administering that may lead to issuing medical attention to patients with limited value to avoid adverse outcomes (Schiff et al. 2016). Secondly, the rise in wild claims and medical liability risk increase makes the junior doctors shy when required to undertake some specialities fearing to incur litigation risks. This hence leads to a contribution to the shortage of specialists.

Due to fear of professional negligence, most professionals have made decisions of remaining uninsured so that they may not undergo the charges of medical malpractice. The availability of negative patients is also one of the things that lead to the costs of medical malpractices. Their perceptions towards individual doctors demotivate others hence resulting in distressful relationships between doctors and patients.

The crisis that may occur as a result of medical malpractices may involve one ending up to lose their license of practising medicine or being a practitioner. Physicians may end up being forced to close their businesses. Before a crisis becomes worse and ends up affecting the involved parties, it is usually best to find ways of dealing with them fast.

Tort reform involves the laws that usually limit on the amount financial assistance patients can be awarded from the sued owners of the clinics regarding the issue of malpractice involving the amount that a physician can pay for damages involved (Born and Karl 2016). This reform is to help patients not to end up spending so much for services involving malpractices that have been caused by the practitioners.

Tort reforms are effective because it has enhanced various benefits to the medical industry as a whole. Through tort reforms, we can ensure that the correctional costs of civil liability are limited this is to ensure that people are made whole and it aims to ensure that the local system is not all about making profits (Born and Karl 2016). Secondly tort reform is effective because through it we can maintain the file suitability, to enable people to understand what qualifies as a personal stand for the process to take place is a smooth and fairway and to ensure that those who need justice are given it in the best way possible.

Thirdly, through tort reforms, we can make the juries to only put their focus on the available current cases instead of focusing on the possible rewards. Tort reforms have made it easier for people to practice the payment of justice because it offers so many different ways of resolution of some instances (Born and Karl 2016). For things that are seen as cognitive aspects, tort reforms have helped in limiting the fees that attorneys receive. This is that they should be paid according and not exaggeratedly.

Obstacles to effective communication as a tort reform measure are as follows; The use of complicated terms that most people are not familiar with hinders communication between people especially in the process of tort reform (Born and Karl 2016). Secondly, in life, not everyone is good at freely expressing themselves so you may find people who find it difficult to express themselves emotionally and hence find some communication topics off limits, therefore, a hindrance in communication towards reforms. The other obstacle to effective communication is when people who are being communicated too are not focusing on what is being said by not paying attention to the essential points; hence, a barrier to communication. When people have different views on specific issues, they tend not to agree in a particular solution towards certain matters hence lack of right decisions.

The obstacles to apology include:

• One not being concerned about what is going on or what people are going through in relations to their actions and not trying to offer excuses.
• People were having negative assumptions towards apology as ineffectiveness. This is when they find it hard for them to apologize for their negativity.
• Some people view apologizing as a threat to their image, not considering the harm that they may have caused others due to their actions and at times the shame they might have brought to others.

An apology is a way of showing that you know you are wrong and that you acknowledge your mistake and hence the wrong person should be able to feel that you are accountable for your wrong doings towards them through making them know that it will never happen again. One should not always apologize for a crazy thing, but instead, you should understand that accountability requires more than just an apology and know that communication is the only way through. The components of I am sorry statues are; Acknowledgement, use of portraits, comforting the statute, use of written words.

The effectiveness of overcoming barriers to effective communication and apology:

Overcoming obstacles to effective communication makes one be able to know the importance of using simple language and terms while communicating to make it easier for people to understand what is being said. Through overcoming the barriers to apology and communication, we can reduce the amount of noise that is usually made by people in the name of not agreeing with what is said.

The other aspect making overcoming barriers to communication effective is that it promotes active listening where people pay attention to what is being said and be able to follow the available instructions accordingly. This makes one understand the message fully without difficulties.

The MO statutes usually include components for effective communication and apology through contributing to the essential strategies towards ensuring that disclosure is appropriate and accordingly, and the practice of apology consists of the aspect of accountability at all times. The MO has been effective in the minimization of the cost of effective medical malpractice.

References

Born, P. H., & Karl, J. B. (2016). The effect of tort reform on medical malpractice insurance market trends. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 13(4), 718-755.

Schiff, G. D., Nieva, H. R., Griswold, P., Leydon, N., Ling, J., Biondolillo, M., & Singer, S. J. (2016). Addressing ambulatory safety and malpractice: The Massachusetts PROMISES Project. Health services research, 51(Suppl Suppl 3), 2634.