I notice that KevinMD blogged about the same arbitration story that I mentioned a couple of days ago. He wrote,

A malpractice trial is long and laborious, and at the end of it all, patients are often not appropriately compensated for medical errors.

Arbitration would be a more streamlined process, and allow patients to be compensated more quickly.

I can’t say with confidence that arbitration is the ultimate answer as opposed to tort reform or medical courts (and I Kevin isn’t either, as far as I can tell).  There may be an even better solution.  But arbitration does make a lot of sense (more sense than the story seems to allow for).

The reason it makes sense is that both doctors and patients have certain shared interests. For example, they both value their

TIME

Court cases take a long time, especially with the appeals process.

MONEY

Granted, in the court system some people might win huge amounts of money, large enough to make make an impact on medical care for everyone as prices rise and shortages expand. But many people don’t, and they have to pay an attorney a substantial percentage of what is won. Saving money in the arbitration process itself is a benefit for both parties.