Sorry, Laws Protecting Doctors Who Apologize Don’t Lessen Litigation
By Claims Journal, June 5, 2019
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Laws intended to reduce malpractice litigation by protecting doctors who want to apologize don’t work, according to a new Vanderbilt analysis of proprietary insurance data.
It turns out people sue for money and an apology doesn’t change that reality. In fact, apologies may raise the risk of claims.
“The idea is simply that if providers could just say they’re sorry, that’s what patients really want. They really don’t care about punishing the doctor in a financial context, they care about having them express remorse,” said Larry Van Horn, associate professor of management and executive director of health affairs at Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management, one of the authors of the study. “But what we find is that no, people sue for money. ‘Sorry’ is not enough.”
