By MINDY NUNEZ DUFFOURC
A New Era of Amazon Healthcare Should Take a Cue From Germany to Provide Support for Medical Malpractice Victims
Amazon, JP Morgan Chase, and Berkshire Hathaway recently announced plans to form a joint non-profit enterprise aimed at providing affordable, high-quality, transparent healthcare to hundreds of thousands of their U.S. employees. Although a healthcare venture departs from their prior expertise, the companies’ combined wealth, resources, and history of market innovation provide hope that this new alliance can reshape the delivery and cost of healthcare in the U.S. As Amazon and company attempt to tackle America’s healthcare problems with a new delivery model, there is also potential for them to support patients who encounter another critical problem in America’s healthcare system – the problem of medical errors.
Johns Hopkins estimates that 250,000 deaths in the United States are caused each year by preventable medical errors. Eliminating medical errors is admittedly difficult. It requires interdisciplinary collaboration, unlikely political alliances, and changing the longstanding “culture of silence” in healthcare. In contrast, supporting patients who are damaged by medical errors, which can have a larger positive effect on the healthcare system, can be easily achieved. And it doesn’t even require innovation. Germany has implemented a model for patient support that can be adopted in the United States.
In Germany, patients who suspect medical errors have a legal right to assistance from their healthcare insurers. This support can include assistance obtaining medical records, the examination and evaluation of documents submitted by patients, helping patients find an attorney or support groups, and providing patients with a free expert medical assessment. In addition, German public healthcare insurers, which insure 90% of the country’s population, are required to fund the Unabhängige Patientenberatung Deutschland (Independent Patient Counseling Germany – UPD). UPD is established pursuant to German federal law and provides patients with free expert medical and legal consultations. At UPD, patients who suspect that they were injured by a treatment error can receive a free online, telephone, or personal consultation from experts to help them understand their legal rights.
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