Patient Safety
ABOVE: Patient advocates working to reform medical malpractice laws meet with Sen. Feinstein's staff.
Medical negligence is a silent epidemic that claims hundreds of thousands of Americans’ lives annually. Consumer Watchdog fights for greater doctor discipline and physician accountability through the regulatory and legal system. We work with patients injured by medical malpractice and their families to tell their stories, improve patient safety and create legal deterrence to medical negligence.
Consumer Watchdog has long opposed and sought to rollback California’s “one size fits all” cap on what injured patients can recover from juries and to stop the spread of this cruel cap on courts across the nation. The medical insurance complex defeated a California ballot initiative in 2014, Prop 46, that would have lifted the cap and instituted drug testing of doctors. A third provision of the ballot measure, the requirement that doctors check an existing database of prescriptions before prescribing narcotics for the first time, was signed into law by Governor Brown in 2016 and in effect.
Read Stories Of Injured Patients Denied Justice In California
Medical Negligence Reports & Resources
How Insurance Reform Lowered Doctor's Medical Malpractice Rates In California: And How Malpractice Caps Failed
In this groundbreaking report, Consumer Watchdog shows the success of insurance regulation and dispels the myth that California's malpractice cap -- the model for so many proposals around the country -- is responsible for reducing insurance premiums in the state.
Medical Malpractice Premiums Graph
This graph (published in the Sacramento Bee) compares what happened to malpractice insurance premiums after "MICRA," California's damage cap law, passed in 1975 and after the passage of insurance reform Proposition 103 in 1988. Hint: The result wasn’t what proponents of MICRA promised.
Rate Savings Chart
Rate challenges brought by Consumer Watchdog under insurance reform Proposition 103's public participation process have saved doctors in California $77 million. View the chart detailing each unjustified malpractice insurance rate increase.
Medical Malpractice Resource Page
Last week SB 325, a bill by Senator Jerry Hill to require the state of California to license and oversee outpatient substance abuse treatment centers, faced its first test in the legislature. It passed the Senate Health Committee unanimously.
Milpitas, CA – Patient safety advocates testified to the Medical Board of California today that its initiative to investigate excessive prescribing by doctors involved in prescription overdose deaths is critical to state efforts to end the opioid overdose epidemic.
Given the divide in America, it’s truly been remarkable how much we have accomplished together in 2018. Below's just some of what we accomplished in 2018, and you can also watch this short highlights video about our victories.
KTTV, Los Angeles - Consumer Watchdog Lauds New CA Law That Would Require Doctors to Check Drug Prescription Database
Sacramento, CA -- Doctors in California will have to be honest with their patients if they are on probation for sexual assa
A win in the California statehouse on the last day of session usually means not losing too much, but last night California consumers scored tangible victories.
Here is last night's statehouse scorecard:
Sacramento, CA – California would be the first state in the nation to mandate doctors tell their patients when they are disciplined for sexual assault or other patient harm under legislation that passed the Assembly and Senate today and goes to Governor Brown's desk.
Los Angeles, CA – A new app released by the Medical Board of California today cannot replace a simple in-person disclosure as the best way to notify patients if their doctor has been disciplined for causing patient harm, said Consumer Watchdog.
Sacramento, CA – Legislation to lift the veil of secrecy around physician sexual assault and other patient harm today passed its final policy committee, the Assembly Business & Professions Committee, with a 15 – 1 vote.
Every doctor in California will soon be required to use the most powerful tool we have to identify and prevent opioid abuse: the state prescription drug database known as CURES.
