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The Sorry Works! Coalition is committed to educating and helping all stakeholders understand the value of doctors apologizing for medical errors. Below is a concise block of dot points which boil down the benefits of Sorry Works! for all stakeholders in the debate over medical malpractice reform.
Please feel free to print this off and/or e-mail to colleagues and friends. These are the reasons Sorry Works! is the best middle ground solutions for the medical malpractice crisis:
Benefits of Sorry Works! for doctors, hospitals, and insurers
- Lower lawsuits
- Lower settlement costs
- Lower overall liability costs, including defense litigation costs
- Provides better control over liability exposure
- No constitutional issues
Benefits of Sorry Works! for patients and families
- More victims receive justice in a quicker fashion (cases closed in two to six months vs. dragging out for years)
- Constitutional rights of victims are NOT limited (victims still have right to file a lawsuit)
- Medical errors are reduced because medical providers and patients can more openly discuss mistakes and how to prevent them from happening again
Benefits of Sorry Works! for trial bar
- Sorry Works! allows trial bar to be for something - it is a positive, pro-active solution that resonates with the media.
- Trial lawyers still represent families and patients under Sorry Works; however, cases are disposed of in two to six months. So, instead of trial lawyers having to cash flow $50K to $500K for two to five years for a typical med-mal case with a 33% chance of success, trial lawyers represent families, have a 95% chance of successfully closing cases, and be done with the cases in six months or less.
- Eliminates guessing game of which doctor(s) to sue. Because doctors traditionally clam up after a mistake, plaintiffs' attorneys are forced to sue all doctors involved in the patient care and eliminate the "innocent" doctors through discovery. These dropped cases hurt the trial bar's "batting average" while innocent doctors and their insurers suffer the costs of legal defense expenses.
Sorry Works! vs. caps
- SPEED: The benefits of Sorry Works! are swift and measurable vs. foggy numbers provided by caps supporters
- SPEED EXAMPLE: The University of Michigan hospital system in the first year of implementing Sorry Works! had lawsuits reduced by 50% and defense litigation expenses decline from $3 million annually to $1 million annually. Real savings, real fast.
- CAPS ARE SLOWWWW....In California - which is the state the caps supporters point to as their success story - insurance premiums rose 450% for the 13 years following the implementation of caps. Caps supporters say that is how long it took for the California Supreme Court to rule caps constitutional....but why do doctors want to wait around for the supposed promises of caps when with Sorry Works! they can take control of their liability problem immediately?
Note: Insurance premiums did start declining in California in 1988 after the court ruled them constitutional - some 13 years after caps were passed in 1975. However, also in 1988 California voters passed mandatory insurance reform which included rate reviews and open books. So, there is a legitimate debate in California what is really responsible for the decrease in insurance rates - caps or insurance reform? Whereas with Sorry Works! there is no guessing game.
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