Awareness of Consumer Protection Act and Medical Indemnity Insurance among the Medical Practitioners in a Tertiary Care Hospital

Medicine is increasingly being commercialized and the patients expect the doctors to be answerable to them. So doctors are covered by various laws to protect the consumers. One such act is the consumer protection act (COPRA) 1986. This act cautions not only the consumers to be aware of negligence but also requires the doctors to act ethically ^[3]. With increasing cases filed against the doctors, the compensation is a huge burden. This is taken care by medical indemnity insurance.

This is a descriptive study done on a sample size of 185. It is an instituional study done in a tertiary care hospital (saveetha medical college). Doctors with MBBS degree and post graduate degree are included but the CRRIs are not included.

Many doctors involved, knew the existence of consumer protection act through professional meetings. Only a handful of doctors knew about the details of consumer protection act, which increases the necessity to impart knowledge about COPRA to the doctors. Only few did'nt know the existence of medical indemnity insurance, while majority of the doctors got the information through professional meetings. Many doctors thought the medical indemnity insurance was a inevitable necessity for the times to come but many had not enrolled themselves.

This study is concluded highlighting the fact that COPRA act and medical indemnity insurance are yet to be completely accepted though they have slowly managed to creep into mere recognition of the practitioner.