Doctors Sign Up for Widespread Reforms to Medical Litigation
Australia's peak medical colleges and medical bodies have signed a mass letter to Health Ministers and Attorneys-General - Federal and State - recommending urgent reforms to the medical litigation system.
Australian Medical Association Federal President, Dr Kerryn Phelps, said the letter followed a crisis meeting in Melbourne last weekend in which doctors voiced renewed concerns about soaring medical insurance premiums.
"These are not exaggerated claims - rural GPs are abandoning obstetrics, hundreds of obstetricians are considering quitting, as are specialists in neurosurgery.
"Should we be concerned enough to make changes to the litigation system if rural communities are left with no doctors who can afford the risk of delivering babies?" Dr Phelps said. "And the cost of litigation must eventually be passed on to all patients."
The recommendations include:
- Alternatives to the adversarial system. The current system is expensive and distressing for all parties, with many cases going to court where there has been no negligence. A tribunal of medical and legal experts would work more effectively.
- Changes to tax laws to allow the introduction of structured settlements in Australia, where compensation payments for personal injuries are made periodically for life, rather than as a lump sum. Currently, periodic payments are taxed, but lump sums are not.
- A full adoption and funding of the five-year Relative Value Study into medical costs and fees, due to be completed in the new year to cover the rising cost of indemnity insurance.
"Doctors are not trying to make it harder to seek compensation for negligence. We are trying to see fair changes introduced into a system where - according to the medical defence organisations - the average wait for a court case is eight years and lawyers pocket two dollars to every dollar won by a claimant.
"We are urging Governments - Federal, State and Territory - to seriously consider these recommendations," she said.