Binding Arbitration Agreements with Doctors: Do You Want to Sign Away Your Rights?

Whether you live in Tampa, Clearwater, St Petersburg, or Brandon, no one likes to go to court. The expenses are significant, the delays are sometimes years, and the outcome is always uncertain.

However, although the jury system has its many faults, it is the best system that humankind has been able to come up with to achieve fair and just results when there is a disputed claim in our country, whether you are in Tampa or surrounding communities such as Town 'n' Country, Brandon, Seminole Heights, Lutz, or St Petersburg.

Corporations and insurance companies, in an attempt to bolster their bottom lines, have increasingly pushed for binding arbitration as an alternative to the jury system. Binding arbitration agreements are a way to circumvent the jury system process by preventing regular people like you from having your day in court. When you sign a binding arbitration agreement, you waive your right to sue, and instead accept binding arbitration to resolve any dispute.

Binding arbitration agreements have their place. When you purchase an item, such as a consumer electronic, it may be quite unreasonable to think the customer should have a right to go to court, which can cost both parities many thousands of dollars when the cost of the item was relatively minor.

But when you're talking about the quality of somebody's life—or even a life itself in cases of wrongful death—it seems ethically inappropriate to force the person or the family to give up their day in court, or even be discouraged from speaking to a Tampa car accident lawyer or personal injury attorney, and instead be bound by the decision of generally three arbitrators.

It is true that binding arbitration is something that you must agree to in writing. Over the last few years, doctors' offices in Sun City Center, Riverview, Carrollwood, Dade City, Seffner, Ybor City, Clearwater, and across Tampa Bay have increasingly required their patients to enter into binding arbitration agreements in order to receive treatment. In that context (as opposed to buying something at Best Buy), the patient may feel duress to sign the clause because the medical treatment is necessary. After a stressful situation like a car accident or other sudden injury, a patient is not prepared to discuss his or her legal rights with a doctor; the patient simply needs medical care. It's unsettling to think that a doctor may hold needed care hostage until you agree that, if the doctor acts in any kind of negligent fashion, you give up your right to address the wrong in a court of law.

Until congress or state legislatures ban the practice, binding arbitration is something that we're likely to see more often as medical providers increasingly look to limit their patients from seeking justice through our jury system, particularly those patients who have been injured as a result of medical wrongdoing.

So what should you do if you are presented with a binding arbitration clause in order to receive medical treatment? You can:

• Refuse to sign the agreement. It is quite possible that the doctor might be willing to treat you, even if you don't sign.
• Have a discussion with the doctor about why he or she finds it necessary to include a binding arbitration agreement. This may help you better understand the doctor's position.
• Change the wording of the agreement to be fairer to you, and then initial those changes. The doctor's office may ignore such a change to the language when you turn in your paperwork. For instance, you can change the agreement to say that, if the arbitrators award you an amount greater than $250,000, you have the right to either accept that amount or pursue a better remedy in court. You could explain to the doctor that if the arbitrators award that much, it means the doctor likely provided substandard care which significantly injured you, thereby giving you the right to consider having a jury of your peers hear your grievance.

If you try the above ideas and the doctor still refuses care, it could be in your best interest to walk out and take your health business elsewhere. If enough of us do just that, doctors may get the message that we don't want lawsuits, we simply want good health care from an attentive doctor who believes he or she meets or exceeds acceptable health care standards.

To learn more about your right to receive medical care after you've been wrongly injured in the Tampa, Florida area, as well as your right to receive medical care from health providers who meet an acceptable standard of care, contact the law firm of Dale Appell, P.A. for a free initial assessment of your case.