The Need for Lawyers in Modern Healthcare

Healthcare, in its most basic context, can be viewed as an essential human right, and as such, certain standards must be upheld within healthcare if the best interests, and indeed the very lives of patients are to be protected. Thankfully, the presence of lawyers has helped to protect the public from the flaws and shortcomings of the healthcare system. With this statement in mind, solid, logical arguments can be made to validate the role of lawyers in the modern healthcare system and beyond.

The Present State of Healthcare

Organized healthcare enjoys a distinct advantage over the patient from several points of view; generally speaking, doctors and hospitals hold the power to decide whether a patient lives or dies, and as such, the tendency of the patient in the past was to relinquish all rights in the pursuit of being cured of a disease or recovering from trauma (Annas, 1989). This has put the patient, ironically enough, in the dangerous position of having no protection and basically taking a gamble with their wellness and survival. Beyond this surrender on the part of the patient, the true motives of the healthcare industry have degraded to an all out pursuit of profits over the provision of the best care that is humanly possible. In the pursuit of a fat bottom line, healthcare has cut staffing to bare minimum levels, compromised care to lethal levels in many cases, and the like. This is proven by the outrageously high number of fatalities from preventable complications such as infections, caregiver error, substandard facilities, and deliberate negligence (Forsythe, 2000). In the midst of this healthcare crisis, fortunately, lawyers have stepped forward to provide an improved view of healthcare-as it should be.
The Lawyer's View of How Healthcare Should Be

Because of the life and death power that the healthcare industry holds, it can be fairly argued that healthcare as a whole has lost sight of the fundamental rights of the patient, not only as someone at their most vulnerable, but also as a human being, entitled to every protection available to them. In filling the roles of advocate for those who are unable in most situations to speak for themselves, lawyers have developed a logical and fair view of how healthcare should be.

First, the issue of the rights of the patient is essential; in other words, as a foundation of healthcare reform, patients must be provided with a bill of rights which details their entitlements and responsibilities. In the pursuit of establishment of such a document, lawyers are actively holding such healthcare organizations as the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) directly responsible for the authoring, practice, and embracing of a universal patient bill of rights. This accomplishes the installation of solid bedrock upon which excellence in healthcare can be achieved (Potter, 2003).

Second, lawyers firmly believe that those within healthcare must be monitored for violations of patient rights, abuses of power and so forth, and those who violate laws, regulations and ethics, as well as the organizations they represent, should be held legally accountable. Falsely identified as abuse of tort law on the part of lawyers, what this truly represents is a system of checks and balances which both protects the users of healthcare and serves as a deterrent for those who unethically abuse the healthcare system for profit, while putting the lives of ill individuals in jeopardy. While some court judgments in legal actions against the healthcare system seem large in terms of the monetary amounts, the price that the victims pay is beyond financial assessment. Therefore, lawyers rightfully advocate ethics and quality in healthcare.

Lastly, lawyers feel that healthcare should be driven not by the pursuit of profits, but by the rights and interests of the patient. Therefore, the power of lawyers to take legal action in the interest of human rights should not be compromised (Annas, 1989).

Lawyer Commercials as a Positive Way to Reach the Public

One of the most important roles that lawyers fill in modern society is the preservation of the rights of common citizens against the misdeeds and outright manipulation that takes place regularly on the part of big businesses, such as the giants of the healthcare industry. Because of the need for common people to be aware of their rights, and for those people to have access to legal protection against violations of their rights, lawyers have in recent years utilized conventional advertising to reach the public. This is a positive move from several points of view. First, one needs to realize the fact that not every common person, indeed few common people in fact, are legal scholars; therefore, they need to be made aware that they are entitled to certain protections under the law. The best way to do this is through advertising; for example, a laborer who was injured on the job and being denied their rightful compensation for their injury can learn of their rights through a television ad by a lawyer and thereby seek legal remedy of which they were previously unaware. Second, the tendency of the media to present lawyers as unethical abusers of the system must be countered by facts that lawyers can often only share with the masses through their own advertising efforts. The bottom line is that properly done, lawyer advertising does far more good than harm.

Summary

In summary, what these arguments have shown is that lawyers are valuable public servants, and their offerings should be communicated to the masses in whatever method is most effective. As with anything else, of course, the legal profession must adhere to standards, but should also be accorded the right to free speech.

References

Annas, G. J. (1989). The Rights of Patients: The Basic ACLU Guide to Patient Rights (2nd ed.). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Forsythe, D. P. (Ed.). (2000). Looking Inward and Outward Looking Inward and Outward. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Potter, A. N. (2003, July). Mission Possible: Find out How a Hospital's Public-Safety Officers Can Further the Healthcare Organization's Overall Mission. Security Management, 47, 71+.