Legal Aspects of Health Care Administration

Tort law has developed as the legal method for providing compensation to persons injured by another who owed a duty of care. However, the traditional negligence-based system has been breaking down over time, and large jury awards and malpractice claims are hindering the abilities of health care professionals and threatening technological developments and medical cures.

Tort reform is needed to ensure that patients are provided with timely and fair compensation for injuries. Tort reform does not change the duty of care owed but focuses on procedures for preventing injuries and handling claims for injuries.

The advantages of tort reform include modernized procedures for identifying and correcting negligent care and misconduct, faster handling of patient complaints, and more timely and equitable compensation for injuries. Establishing professional standards helps to prevent potential injuries and allows medical care providers the room needed to make individualized medical assessments of patient care. Tort reform will also alleviate the increasing practice of defensive medicine.

However, the benefits of tort reform will not come without some cost or compromise to patients and the medical community. One of the most predominant arguments against tort reform is that it locks the victims out of pursuing their right to be heard in a court of law before a jury of their peers. Tort reform standards and procedures are

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gation often involves great expense and unreasonable time delays. Alternative dispute resolution comprises all methods that have been attempted to reduce costs and produce faster resolution to various disputes. Many health care organizations have turned to mediation and arbitration as ways of avoiding the costs and problems associated with litigation. These organizations generally have managed care complaint and appeals processes to help resolve external patient complaints and disputes. Health care organizations also use mediation and arbitration to handle external patient complaints and internal employee disputes. Arbitration is a legal process, held outside of a court, in which parties to a dispute voluntarily agree to have their dispute resolved by an arbitrator or a panel of arbitrators. The decision of the arbitrator may or may not be binding on the parties, depending on the agreement of the parties when going into arbitration. Arbitration may be required by law. An advantage of arbitration, in comparison to litigation, is that it costs much less. Malpractice arbitration panels can help resolve external disputes between patients and health care providers. For the same reasons, arbitration can help resolve interna
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 4053
Approximate Pages = 16 (250 words per page)

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