論美國「Early-Offer Act」的醫療糾紛解決制度

Study on Solving the Medical Dispute System “Early-Offer Act” in U.S.

現今醫療糾紛及醫療之民刑事訴訟已成為常態，尤以提起刑事訴追並附帶民事請求損害賠償案件更是屢見不鮮，此現象除導致司法資源的鉅耗，更使得醫護人員於執業時無法受到保護，進而有防衛性醫療行為產生。有鑑於此，美國各州積極制定解決醫療糾紛之法案，其中，美國新罕布什爾州制定不強制的訴訟前為調解先行之「早期支付賠償法案」，規範醫護方於發生事故時應主動提出賠償方案供病患方抉擇是否參與法案制度，病患方選擇早期支付賠償方案則須放棄訴訟審理程序，以減少濫訴情形。本文以為，我國醫療糾紛處理及醫療事故補償法草案之制定可參酌其中法制作為，強化未來施行的醫糾法案，通盤考量如何減少醫療糾紛訴訟，減輕醫病雙方之負擔。

In nowadays, the Litigation of Medical Dispute has been into the normality, especially the criminal complaint with the requisition of penalty for damages. This phenomenon not only cause the enormous profligacy on judicial resources but also expose the medical personnel into an unprotected situation in order to cause the defensive medical action. From this point of view, many States in The Unite Stated of America started to work actively on formulating laws for solving the Medical Dispute. One example is in the New Hampshire state formulated “the EarlyOffer For Medical Injury Claims Act” as an non mandatory pretrial mediation. Stipulating the medical personnel need to provide the compensation schemes to patients to let them decide if they participating in legislation system or not. If the patient choose the Early-Offer For Medical Injury Claims Act then there is a need to give up the litigation proceedings to reducing frivolous lawsuits. This research indicating in Taiwan, Medical Dispute Resolution and Compensation Act (draft) could be use the Early-Offer For Medical Injury Claims Act as the reference for future to strengthen the law and widely considering how to reduce litigation of Medical Dispute in order to reduce the burden on both medical and patients side.