Smaller Medical Offices Disappearing Due to Tort Reform Speculates Cleveland Medical Malpractice Lawyer
Feb 24, 2012
Cleveland, OH (Law Firm Newswire) February 23, 2012 – It appears that tort reform may be having a different effect than initially expected. Smaller medical offices are folding, and more doctors are working for large institutions.
“There was a time when doctors first thought that medical malpractice reform was a knight in shining armor, and perhaps, at first blush, it was. Over time, medical malpractice reform has demonstrated something that attorneys have known for a long time: that the medical malpractice system is still as unfair and unjust as ever,” remarked Christopher Mellino. Mellino is a Cleveland medical malpractice lawyer of the Mellino Law Firm LLC, in Ohio.
Medical malpractice reform is beginning to take on a whole new face, one that many people did not expect to see. Doctors are leaving smaller practices and flocking to larger institutions for several reasons. Often they are left with little choice but to abandon their own practice and make the move in order to survive economically. It is also easier to practice medicine when one’s employer pays for the medical malpractice insurance.
More and more, the media is running stories about doctors waffling on the issue of tort reform. They are not so much agreeing with the theory that tort reform causes defensive medicine, and not often linking medical malpractice lawsuits to liability insurance premiums driving the good doctors out of practice.
“The issue is even simpler than that. It has to do with how unfair the system is, and how innocent victims are suffering for medical mistakes. As for defensive medicine, the tests called for before tort reform, are the tests called for after tort reform. A good doctor is a good doctor, and will order what tests they think are required. For those who do not do that, tort reform had and has nothing to do with their negligence,” added Mellino.
The simple truth of what is now transpiring across the nation is that private practice physicians are becoming scarce, slowly but surely. Doctors in smaller offices are seeing their patient base erode, thanks to larger, bigger, newer, and supposedly better medical institutions arriving in the neighborhood. Many consider this to be part one of the changing face of medical care in America.
Part two is that doctors want to become employees of the bigger hospitals and other multi-discipline organizations. The reasons for this vary, but include their wish to have reasonably regular hours, family time, less paperwork, not have to worry about making a payroll for staff, or chase insurance companies for the money they are owed and last, but not least, they do not have to pay their own medical malpractice premiums. “That does not mean they can’t still be sued, because they can, but it does mean they do not have as much at stake as a private practitioner,” Mellino pointed out.
“In the meantime, medical malpractice reform continues on; not fairly, not justly, not compassionately and not in the interests of the victims,” said Mellino. “Only an experienced medical malpractice lawyer has the care and concern to assist those who need compensation for injuries received at the hands of a medical health practitioner.”
To learn more or to contact a Cleveland Medical Malpractice attorney or Cleveland malpractice attorney, visit http://www.christophermellino.com.
Mellino Law Firm LLC
200 Public Sq., Suite 2900
Cleveland, Ohio 44114
Call: (216) 241-1901
