Health Coalition Sends Legislative Proposals for Medical Liability Reform to Congress

Health Coalition Sends Legislative Proposals for Medical Liability Reform to
Congress

WASHINGTON, July 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Health Coalition on
Liability and Access today distributed a report on Capitol Hill, advocating
legislative proposals for medical liability reform that they will push to have
included in comprehensive health care reforms currently under consideration by
Congress.

HCLA supports reform of our nation's broken medical liability system in order
to provide fair and timely compensation to plaintiffs, reduce health care
costs, and preserve patient access to quality medical care.

"There is widespread agreement that the current medical liability system in
our country is broken and does not serve patients well. Increasingly, health
care policy experts, opinion leaders and the public understand that real
health care reform cannot be achieved without medical liability reform," said
HCLA Chair Mike Stinson.

"Our reform proposals are designed to put more money in the pockets of
patients, not personal injury lawyers, and to help lower health care costs by
reducing defensive medicine. We urge Congress to take action on medical
liability reform, and include these solutions in their comprehensive health
care reform legislation," Stinson said.

Proposed reforms include a mandated Certificate of Merit filed along with the
lawsuit to help eliminate lawsuits without merit; periodic payments of damage
awards that exceed $50,000; limited liability for physicians who volunteer
their health care services during an emergency or disaster; minimum standards
for expert witnesses; and no de facto liability for an incident resulting in
nonpayment of claims by Medicare under the so-called "never events" payment
policy.

HCLA is also supporting pilot programs in various states, allowing states or
medical systems that participate to be eligible for additional federal health
care funding. Included in these state reform projects are an "early offers"
system to expedite or resolve liability cases rather than going to trial;
forming specialized health courts to handle liability lawsuits; and a waiver
of liability for health care providers who practice according to acceptable
clinical practice guidelines. Many of the details could be worked out by
individual states or medical systems to allow for flexibility within the
program.

To read the full proposal on medical liability reform legislative options,
visit www.hcla.org.

For more details, visit www.hcla.org. The Health Coalition on Liability and
Access is a national advocacy coalition representing doctors, hospitals,
health care liability insurers, pharmaceutical companies, health care
insurers, employers and health care consumers. HCLA believes federal
legislation is needed to bring fairness, timeliness and cost-efficiency to
America's medical liability system.

SOURCE Health Coalition on Liability and Access

Lauren Slepian, +1-609-744-4794, for the Health Coalition on Liability and
Access