Arbitration in Resolving Medical Malpractice Disputes. Will a Well-drafted Arbitration Agreement Help the Medicine Go Down?, 49 Syracuse L. Rev. 135 (1998). creates a difference in the treatment physicians get when trying to enforce an arbitration agreement. In 2011 the American Medical Association Advocacy Resource Center prepared a table that describes the different liability reforms adopted by each state, if any, including the possibility or requirement of arbitration as those reforms relate to medical malpractice arbitration agreements. There are several common principles shared by the different states that have adopted statutes that regulate arbitration agreements between patients and physicians. XxXxxxx summarizes them in his article. They include signature of the agreement as a condition to receive treatment, right to revoke agreement after treatment, notice provision of the agreement, and simplicity of language.18 The current options include different types of arbitration. Some states have voluntary binding and non-binding arbitration; others have mandatory arbitration for all medical malpractice claims, while in others it is mandatory if the damage claims are under a specific amount. There are differences even among the states that have mandatory arbitration. In some it is required but can be waived by one of the parties; in others the parties can reject the arbitration decision and proceed to trial. Other states do not have any provisions on arbitration and some provide the parties with the option of consenting to a rule of court referring all matters in controversy to arbitration. Even in those states that have statutes that specifically address arbitration agreements there is no consensus of when the agreement should be presented. There is also no consensus on caps on damages. 18 XxXxxxx, supra note 15, at 237.
