Arbitration a growing trend in health care

Don't be surprised if one day your physician asks for a signature before providing services..in case of an emergency those conditions might be different...BD

They were asked by two groups of suburban doctors to sign away their right to a jury trial in the interest of reducing malpractice costs. Proponents say arbitration is faster, cheaper and fairer than trials, but critics say the secretive system can be weighted against consumers and makes it harder to track complaints or build legal precedents.
But Temple University law professor Bill Woodward thinks the growth of a private judicial system "is a pretty nasty legal development, I think, and it's just crying out for correction from Congress."
Her patients have largely embraced the new approach, she said. She will not do surgery on anyone who refuses to sign the form, which limits pain and suffering payments. For her, the arbitration agreement sets the groundwork for a more trusting doctor-patient relationship. Patients need to understand that bad things happen in spite of doctors' best efforts. "Medicine is not guaranteed perfection," she said.