From The Middle: Medical malpractice awards are not "skyrocketing".

California had some excessive damages in the past. I think one jury awarded $80m.

$250k is too small. There has to be a sufficient disincentive for crappy care by providers, med groups, hospitals and health plans. Remember that only a very small percentage of lousy care will ever be identified so the punishment for the ones that are should be worthy of attention. $250k? No threat there.

 

Well if the doctor loses his/her insurance after too many....

 

those aren't punitive damages...punitive damages are nothing more than punishment...economic damages include loss of employment...loss of intimacy with your wife....all sorts of "soft" issues...punitive damages are only meant as punishment...

Fair enough. Anyone know what percent of total awards tend to be punitive? It seems to me you could get a lot more out of the "soft" issues by playing on a jury's sentiments than you could from punitive damages, unless the doctor really was being psycho negligent (drunk on the job, etc). If anything, that's the area that seems to be where awards would be spiraling upwards.

 

The average med mal award has increased from $350,000 to $850,000.

As a result of these judgments, med mal insurance premiums increased 100% across the board in Texas last year.

Could you give any evidence or links to sustantiate these stats?

 

yeah...but if the whole industry is grossly affected by rising premiums, then that punishment is being shared by everyone.

take away the guy's license to practice medicine if that's your concern.

 

not so long as rush limbaugh's commentary on it isn't impugned for simply being his.

 

That would be preferable to me, but what's the likelihood of getting the AMA on board with that?

 

http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/healthcare/nw/nw002609.php3

The average jury award, however, rose to $1 million in 2000 from $500,000 in 1995, according to Jury Verdict Research in Horsham, Pa.

...
Meanwhile, it reports a smaller rise for malpractice settlements-to $500,000 from $350,000-in the same time period but adds that the sampling is sparse due to confidentiality agreements.

 

This is what my wife has found from looking at past results in lawsuits. I would imagine that she read the Blue Sheets.

In response to the notion of tort reform, we have to balance two important interests.
1. Compensating those who have been injured.
2. Making sure that doctors stop going bankrupt en masse.

No system that human being are able to devise will be able to balance these interests fairly. Personally I am in favor of a system that allows good doctors to stay in business. That is currently not happening. My father in law has colleagues who are good doctors and never had a claim filed against them...they have been forced to shut their doors largely due to spiralling insurance premiums and other costs of potential litigation.

If we don't do something to protect doctors from lawsuit abuse, then we will all feel the pain within the next 10 years.

Case in point...try to find an OB/GYN in West Virginia...they don't exist. They have either folded up shop or left the state.

In regard to California...the courts in Philadelphia have doled out more money in med mal judgments over the last 3 years than the entire state of California. Something is terribly wrong.

I believe that injured persons should be compensated...but nobody should become independently wealthy on punitive damages in a questionable med mal lawsuit. That is what is currently happening in many states.

 

Madmax,

According to Cohen's link:

<I>Jury Verdict Research reports there is no accurate information on pain and suffering payments because settlements do not break them out. But that lack of hard data hasn't stopped both sides from expressing opposing opinions on how California's model $250,000 cap on pain and suffering has affected that state. </I>

California's restriction is on "pain and suffering", not punitive damages. Wouldn't that be the same as those "soft issues" we discussed?

 

honestly, i don't know..i haven't read that much about it to see how they break it down...i thought the cap was on punitives only. and i don't do any personal injury/med mal work so i don't have any experience to rely on here.

 

Just a quick thought from CBS...

http://www.cbsmalpractice.com/report/articles/jan0902.htm

Not long ago, the prevailing wisdom was that, unless a chiropractic visit resulted in paralysis or some other extremely rare outcome, damages from chiropractic cases were low. Today, chiropractors have entered the mainstream of modern health care – and are often making as much or more money than many M.D.s – juries are more apt to levy large awards against D.C.s they find negligent.

One case, tried in Cook county, Illinois, ended in a record verdict for a chiropractic malpractice case, with the plaintiffs being awarded in excess of $3.7 million! The case involved a male patient who presented with a large posterior osteophyte growth in his thoracic spine, which completely compressed on his spinal chord. According to plaintiff’s attorney’s, Stephan Blandin and Thomas Routh of Romanucci & Blandin, the D.C.s "ignored x-rays of his lumbar spine, which revealed this progressive degenerative process, and failed to x-ray Mr. Tew's thoracic spine despite performing chiropractic manipulations on that area of his back."

If the trend in chiropractic malpractice awards follows that of the medical profession, we will continue to see higher and higher awards. According to Jury Verdict Research, Horsham, Penn., Jury awards in medical malpractice lawsuits rose 7% in 1999, the third straight year of increases. The median medical malpractice award in 1999 was $800,000, up from $750,000 in 1998, despite plaintiffs winning 2% fewer cases in 1999 than they did in 1998.

Even settling a case isn't cheap. The Jury Verdict Research figures shows that it cost 30% more to settle a medical malpractice lawsuit in 1999 than it did in 1998. The median settlement was $650,000 in 1999.

Although it’s tempting to dismiss these awards as an M.D.-only problem, the D.C. is also increasingly vulnerable. Approximately 13% of all malpractice cases involve missed or incorrect diagnoses – and that type of malpractice case averaged $625,000 in awards.

Even tort reform legislation which puts a cap on jury awards isn’t going to save the D.C. from huge awards. Most allow for "economic damages" as well as non-economic and punitive damages. Economic damages cover all the medical costs needed as a result of the malpractice action (in the case of one infant, the cost was estimated at $300,000 per year for 66 years, for a total of $103.7 million). Caps for non-economic awards are normally at least $250,000 to $500,000.

With the ever-increasing amount of jury awards, It’s easy to see that doctors of chiropractic can face extreme hardship if they lose a malpractice case in court. The need for a committed, passionate malpractice program
with extensive chiropractic experience has never been greater.

 

"Even settling a case isn't cheap. The Jury Verdict Research figures shows that it cost 30% more to settle a medical malpractice lawsuit in 1999 than it did in 1998. The median settlement was $650,000 in 1999."


since most cases never get to trial, this is pretty indicative of the problem, i'd say. i have a friend who's a board certified expert trial lawyer...and the guy hasn't been through a full trial, start to finish, in around 5 years!

 

Here's another quick thought...

http://www.ncpa.org/iss/hea/2003/pd010203b.html

Across the country, patients are being denied medical treatment because of an out-of-control tort system. Juries willing to award sky-high payouts to plaintiffs poison the well for patients everywhere. Because of sky-high malpractice insurance, many doctors are threatening to strike or close shop.

-In Pennsylvania, only two insurers write medical malpractice policies, down from 10 five years ago, and they are refusing many new subscribers, limiting coverage, dropping doctors and hiking rates.

-According to the Pennsylvania Medical Society, 1,100 policies covering up to 3,000 doctors have not been renewed this year.

-Across the country, OB-GYNs are refusing to deliver babies, neurosurgeons won't see trauma patients, radiologists won't read mammograms and orthopedists are staying out of the operating room.

-In Las Vegas, a pregnant woman can call 50 obstetricians before finding one willing to accept a new patient.

-In Arizona, a baby was born on the side of the road after her mother had passed her community hospital, where the insurance crisis had closed the maternity ward.

-As in West Virginia, trauma centers in Nevada, Mississippi and other states are in danger of being downgraded or closed because doctors steer clear of high-risk practices.

Now that the GOP holds the Senate, maybe there will be meaningful tort reform, including a desperately needed limit on punitive-damage awards in medical malpractice suits.

Source: Editorial, "Lawyers vs. Patients - III," Wall Street Journal, Thursday, January 2, 2003.

 

see my post above...most cases never see a jury...literally, i'd say about 10% actually get to a trial...and of those, not all are jury trials..some are bench trials.

 

Sorry to have multiple posts...but the hits keep on coming.

http://www.thedoctors.com/advocacy/summit/malpracticecrisis.asp

We know genuine legal reform works
California has 27 years of experience with the MICRA statutes (Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act of 1975). This is not an experiment. We know, we do not speculate, that genuine legal reform works. Since 1975, The Doctors Company malpractice premium rates in California have decreased by 40 percent in constant dollars. This is true despite the fact that there has not been and is not today any limit on actual damages awarded. Check the charts illustrating the results of almost three decades of effective legal liability reform in California.

How did we get here, and how can legal reform make a difference?
Malpractice premiums are rising at an alarming rate in many parts of the United States. A number of physicians have been forced to stop providing high-risk services (meaning the sickest patients are not receiving necessary care), to relocate entire practices to states with a more reasonable legal climate, or to retire prematurely. The rest must bear the burden of ever increasing malpractice insurance costs at a time when medical reimbursements are more constrained than ever. How did we get here?

The meritless majority of malpractice suits
Despite stunning advances in scientific knowledge, medicine remains more art than science, because human beings are not machines. Medicine's achievements today, and promise tomorrow, as remarkable as they are, can never be guaranteed. It is a sad commentary on our society that approximately one of every six practicing physicians faces a malpractice claim every year. In high-risk specialties such as obstetrics, orthopedics, trauma surgery, and neurosurgery, there is one claim for each doctor every two and a half years. It is critical to understand that seven to eight out of 10 of these claims are found to be without merit, but still the onslaught continues.

Unlimited awards mean unlimited premium hikes
The insurance system was able to accommodate even this inexcusable volume of litigation as long as the size of the few valid claims was predictable. Unfortunately, in the past few years there has been an explosion in the cost of individual claims. Texas has seen a $268 million verdict. A number of states have witnessed verdicts in excess of $100 million. The city of Philadelphia has recorded multiple verdicts in excess of $50 million in just the past two years. Arkansas has recorded four malpractice claims totaling $98 million in the past year alone. Insurance is not magic. If society wishes to pay unlimited awards, it will need to tolerate unlimited premiums. Unlimited premiums mean unlimited increases in the cost of medical care. Since health care today is a zero-sum game, these cost increases mean corresponding decreases in access to necessary medical services.

Claims settle faster in California
We know, we do not speculate, that claims settle about 33 percent faster in California than the rest of the nation because the lottery aspect of noneconomic damages has been controlled.

Even very large judgments can be accommodated
We know that even very large judgments can be accommodated by the insurance system because they can be paid on an annual basis over the intended period of compensation, not as a single jackpot.

Injured patients take home higher awards in California
We know, we do not speculate, that injured patients take home a significantly higher percentage of awards in California, because there is an upper limit on attorney contingency fees.

MICRA does not limit access to attorneys
We know that MICRA has not limited access to attorneys. California is a litigious state and the frequency of suits in California is 50 percent higher than the national average. And we know that nearly eight out of 10 claims remain without merit.

MICRA does not limit total awards
Finally, we know that not only does MICRA not limit total awards, but also that malpractice awards still rise faster than inflation in California.

We have been at the forefront for more than 26 years
Founders of The Doctors Company fought for and helped create California's MICRA statutes in 1975. We have remained at the forefront of legal reform efforts ever since. Not all insurance companies share this commitment. There are at least two reasons. First, some companies are reluctant to incur the wrath of the plaintiff's bar. Second, since insurance companies, like any viable business, must price at cost plus, higher premiums can mean larger profits.

We protect the practice of good medicine
The Doctors Company remains unalterably committed to our mission: to protect the practice of good medicine. We back this commitment with outstanding legal defense, with the financial strength needed to fulfill the promise of indemnification for viable claims, and with an unceasing effort to achieve national legal reform. This plain statement is backed by major investments in time, money, and personnel.

We await the return of justice to jurisprudence
Ultimately, we all look forward to the day when justice is returned to medical-legal jurisprudence. Every day, The Doctors Company works to earn the trust of our member-owners.

 

Selective response are always amusing.

Did your read the rest of my post that you just quoted?

You failed to respond to the 'indirect' costs of malpractice insurance that are not captured by any of the statistics that have been mentioned previously. In short, it's not as simplistic as your analsys lead you to believe.