Tending to and healing the body is a noble profession with roots in ancient Greece. An oath named after Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, puts forth the principle that physicians should “first, do no harm.” Yet, mistakes in healthcare are so rampant that some have termed the situation a crisis. Of course, medical professionals are human and some mistakes are to be expected, but the high frequency of these potentially devastating, largely preventable errors have created a public health problem that leaves many patients in pain and in debt.
The Institute of Medicine issueda seminal study in 1999 examining the quality of health care in the U.S. Defining medical errors as “the failure of a planned action to be completed as intended or the use of a wrong plan to achieve an aim,” the study estimated that such lapses prove fatal for between 44,000 and 98,000 people every year. That’s more than the annual number of deaths attributable to well-publicized causes like AIDS, motor vehicle accidents, or breast cancer. The researchers also concluded that preventable medical mistakes costbillions of dollars per year, including the expense of additional care necessitated by the errors, lost income and household productivity, and disability.
In 2008, actuaries measured direct medical expenses and determined thatmedical errors annually cost $17.1 billion while the cost of avoidable hospital readmissions added another $13 to $18 billion a year. The study identified more than 1.5 million avoidable errors and found that, on average, the cost per mistake was $11,366. Almost 70 percent of the total medical cost for measurable medical errors was due to ten common errors: pressure ulcers, postoperative infections, postlaminectomy syndrome, hemorrhage complicating a procedure, accidental puncture or laceration during a procedure, mechanical complication of a non-cardiac device, abdominal hernia without mention of obstruction,hematoma complicating a procedure, unspecified adverse effect of a drug, and mechanical complication of a cardiac device.
Another source, the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB), lists the five most common categories of malpractice cases as diagnosis, treatment, surgery, medication, and obstetrics. According to the NPDB, the responsibility for these incidents is spread among many types of practitioners. From 2004 to 2014, over 270,300 malpractice claims were brought against nurses and 182,095 were brought against physicians. Dental professionals, therapeutic practitioners, and technicians and assistants saw the third, fourth, and fifth highest numbers of claims. There is no federal law that requires hospitals to report medical errors; and although 27 states do mandate such reporting, the data is rife with inaccuracies and is not uniformly collected.
Healthcare providers that make a mistake rarely bear the resulting financial obligations. Instead,when treatment makes a patient’s health worse, he or she is also expected to foot the bill for the avoidable error. Taking on debt when the need for further care was preventable is to add insult to literal and figurative injury. And the outlook is grim: medical bills are a common reason for personal bankruptcy filings. According to a 2013 analysis, 1.7 million Americans live in households that will declare bankruptcy due to inability to pay medical bills. Of adults ages 19 to 64:
- 56 million will have trouble paying medical bills.
- Over 35 million will be hear from collection agencies seeking payment for medical bills.
- High medical bills will cause almost 17 million to receive a lower credit rating.
- More than 15 million will empty their savings to pay medical bills.
- Over 11 million will run up credit card debt in order to pay hospital bills.
- Nearly 10 million will be unable to pay for basic necessities such as food and rent because of medical bills.
A 2016 look at healthcare found that 26 percent of U.S. adults have experienced serious financial problems due to health care costs. Of that number, large medical bills caused 42 percent to spend most or all of their personal savings, 23 percent to take on credit card debt that might be hard to pay off, 19 percent to take out a loan, and 7 percent to declare bankruptcy.
Although the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) has reduced the number of uninsured, high-deductible plans requiring more out-of-pocket costs can quickly cause debt to add up. An average family of four with an employer-sponsored “preferred provider plan” is currently estimated to have healthcare costs of $25,826, which has more than tripled since 2001’s figure of $8,414. Now responsible for 43 percent, employees carry four percent more of the cost than they did 15 years ago. Some of these increases can be traced to insurance companies’ passing the buck on to the consumer, raising rates to counteract increased claims for medical errors.
When medical treatment goes wrong, it can set off a chain of events that harms the patient beyond the physical toll. Consequences from medical mistreatment can easily lead to job loss due to the patient’s being physically or emotionally unable to continue life as it was prior to the error. Loss of employment is often coupled with loss of health insurance, which then leaves the patient unable to afford medical care. When the bills multiply and income is limited, many people turn to credit cards, not realizing how quickly this option can cause a bad situation to become a hopeless one. Drawn in by balance transfers, limited time low interest rates, or interest-only payments as well as minimum payments, credit card debt can mount fast and furiously. Interest, late fees, and penalties for being overdrawn can even surpass the original debt.
In cases where negligence can be proven, a medical malpractice lawsuit may be feasible. If you believe you have been a victim of medical malpractice, it’s important to talk with a malpractice attorney in your state. Ininstances where legal action is not viable, the patient’s financial fallout from paying the extra costs may be best dealt with by filing for bankruptcy protection. Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 of the United States Bankruptcy Code consider both medical debt and credit card debt to be unsecured, meaning such debt is eligible for dismissal in the right circumstances. Many bankruptcy attorneys offer free initial consultations, so it’s often worth the time to talk to a lawyer who can evaluate your personal situation.
About: Mike Stephenson is a medical malpractice attorney in Indianapolis who has been representing clients in the central Indiana for more than 2 decades. Mike is a partner at McNeely Stephenson, Attorneys at Law which specializes in personal injury lawsuits.