Health Law and Policy Commons^™

Disclosing Deviations: Using Guidelines To Nudge And Empower Physician-Patient Decision Making, Melissa Ballengee Alexander

Faculty Articles

Americans fail to receive recommended care roughly half the time, reflecting poor decision making that threatens their health. This Article offers an innovative solution: require physicians to disclose clinical practice guideline recommendations to patients during informed consent. Behavioral economics suggest that insisting physicians and patients discuss guidelines, before deviating from them, could be surprisingly effective at nudging more rational care choices. At the same time, such disclosure should also educate and empower patients, serving autonomy.

Previous scholarship on unwarranted variances in care has focused primarily on malpractice reforms, largely ignoring the role of cognitive bias and the importance of patients …

Uncovering The Silent Victims Of The American Medical Liability System, Joanna Shepherd

Faculty Articles

A frequently overlooked problem with the current medical liability system is the vast number of medical errors that go uncompensated. Although studies indicate that 1% of hospital patients are victims of medical negligence, fewer than 2% of these injured patients file claims. In this Article, I explain that many victims of medical malpractice do not file claims because they are unable to find attorneys willing to take their cases.

I conducted the first national survey of attorneys to explore medical malpractice victims' access to the civil justice system. The results from the survey indicate that the economic reality of litigation …

Bajakajian: New Hope For Escaping Excessive Fines Under The Civil False Claims Act, Melissa Ballengee Alexander

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.