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Doctors order mandatory arbitration for patients.

Article Excerpt
The argument against binding arbitration, now common in consumer agreements such as cell phone and credit card contracts, is that it denies access to courts. In health care disputes, the use of mandatory arbitration is not as widespread, but the stakes are much higher, consumer advocates say--in part because patients seeking treatment are likely to sign anything a medical provider puts in front of them.

Some individual doctors, health care facilities, HMOs, and doctors' insurers routinely ask patients to sign predispute mandatory arbitration agreements. Although some can be revoked later, critics argue that these agreements have no place in medicine.

"Health care isn't like other goods and services," said Clark Newhall, a lawyer and physician in Utah, where predispute agreements in health care have been common for years. Consumers usually have access to information on the quality, effectiveness, price, and safety of a good or service they're choosing, he explained, "but you have less information about your doctor than about a bar of soap." With predispute mandatory arbitration agreements, Newhall said, "You go forth blindly out of necessity, and you are limited thereafter to one remedy in the event your choice is misguided. There is no appeal."

Consumer groups righting to eliminate mandatory arbitration across the board say there is nothing wrong with arbitration itself. But because consumers are asked to sign these agreements before a dispute arises, and the arbitration clause often is buried in a longer document, people don't understand that they're signing away their right to a jury trial. Other concerns are that arbitrators are biased and do not have to follow court precedent, some agreements cap damages, and the process lacks transparency and can cost more than a trial.

"In medical malpractice, this...

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