Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
Reregulate insurance companies, force the AMA to police its own, and mandate aggressive reductions in preventable errors in hospitals. Any or all of these will reduce malpractice awards - and the last two have the additional benefit of increasing the quality of health care."
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On a recent plane ride, I sat with someone who had been involved in devising a self-policing program for one medical specialty. That specialty -- anesthesiology (sp?) -- has seen less growth in premiums and claims costs than have others, even though it is a high-risk practice and even though, prior to these initiatives, it had the same or greater problems with these issues as other specialties. There was also a significant improvement in patient care.
I relate this because I wonder, why is it necessary to "force" the AMA to police its own? And who would do that forcing -- government? Please.
I also wonder -- and in particular would like RT's thoughts -- on whether the benefits of what the ana-whatever docs did is actually as significant as I understood from my conversation (and later reading on the issue), and whether other specialties have considered similar measures.
