Doctors order mandatory arbitration for patients.

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 ca