If you or a loved one has been misdiagnosed or have been a victim of medical malpractice in the State of California and would like to take the doctor or hospital to court, you my find it very difficult to get a lawyer to represent you.
There’s a reason California personal injury lawyers cringe at medical malpractice lawsuits - in this state, we have a $250,000 cap on medical malpractice awards and a cap on attorney’s fees. These two factors combine to make the pursuit of a medical malpractice not worth the costs and risks for wronged patients and their attorneys.
This cap on medical malpractice awards has been in existence for more than 30 years now in California. In 1975, the state enacted legislation capping malpractice awards and lowering attorneys’ fees (only for the patients’ attorneys) after doctors and insurers in California protested saying oversized awards and ever-increasing insurance rates were driving physicians out of the state.
What this law known as Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA) essentially did was limit the amount of money for “pain and suffering” - which is the physical and emotional distress caused by an injury to $250,000. There is no limit on what […]
Full Article At: KnowHow-Now.com Articles
With a mix of horrifying medical accidents and warmly logical problem solving, Internal Bleeding provides a serious, if graphic, look at an industry where a simple mistake can lead directly to death. Happily, authors (both are medical doctors) Robert Wachter and Kaveh Shojania have as many practical solutions as they have tragic errors. Generally based on updated systems and protocols in processes like computerized prescription writing and physically initialing specific body parts to be operated on, their solutions are both sympathetic and angry. Pointing out impatient, overworked or generally stubborn doctors and nurses that are resistant to changing procedures, they also are quick to detail the overwhelming combination of low funds and the drive for profit that keep hospitals from always providing the optimum working (and healing) conditions. Most helpful to nervous patients (and you’ll almost certainly be nervous after reading this) is a short chapter offering advice on how to insure you’re well informed on all aspects of your health care. While the language–and solutions–presented are often complex, the knowledgeable, personal slant provided by both authors lends a new perspective to the continuing debate between abstract policies and daily practices in health care. –Jill Lightner
