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| This week, the US House of Representatives voted 229 for and 196 against the Medical Malpractice Bill, (HP 5), which seeks to limit a plaintiff’s recovery to $250,000.00 for medical negligence. Today, people bemoan the fact that doctors in obstetrics and gynecology were paying up to $85,000.00 a year in medical malpractice premiums, and for some inconceivable reason, no one looks to the insurance companies! Instead, people blame lawyers and large verdicts. Would you change your mind if you knew that, according to calculations based on two surveys published by Medical Economics magazine, OB/GYNs’ premiums are, on the average, only 6.7% of his/her income? In fact, medical malpractice premiums are not solely tied to the level of risk in their profession, but also to their income. So, if a doctor’s premiums are $85,000.00, then his/her income is probably astronomical. Any doctor crying about that does not deserve to practice medicine. The same surveys reports that cardiologists pay an average of only 1.5% of their annual income. Is that such a hardship? Other than high-risk fields such as obstetrics and high-risk surgical fields where the victims face devastating consequences, "most physicians are minimally affected". [1] In fact, a March 2002 government report by MedPAC, a congressional advisory commission, shows that on the average, medical malpractice premiums were expected to represent only 3.2 % of a doctor’s annual revenue. Now here is a real kicker. USA Today’s investigation for their March 4, 2003 Hype article discovered that less than 2% of medical malpractice claims result in winning verdicts at trial. LESS THAN 2%! Something is amiss, and it isn’t the lawyers. They are a smart lot, those insurers. They know how to rally the masses. And here is how they do it. Instead of charging the one doctor who commits malpractice with a higher premium, they punish ALL the doctors with the higher premium. That way, ALL the doctors will be angry. But, they can’t be angry at their insurers, or they won’t get insurance. And they have trouble blaming the bad doctors, because that just isn’t cricket! So, they rally against the lawyers. • Last month, 17-year-old Jessica Santillan died after a surgeon at Duke University Hospital implanted a heart and lungs of the wrong blood type without checking the organs' suitability. A new study in Pediatrics magazine finds that medical errors occur in more than 1 in 10 cases involving children with complex medical problems. • Recently at a Minnesota hospital, Linda McDougal, 46, of Woodville, Wis., received an unnecessary double mastectomy because her biopsy results were mixed up with those of another woman, who was mistakenly told she was cancer-free. Is the proper measure to raise the level of acceptable negligence for doctors? Should we limit the value of the life of a child, or a woman’s breasts? Consider this. For $250,000.00, or even $500,000.00, would you let a doctor put an incompatible heart or lungs in your body? Would you let them take your breasts? The same USA Today research suggests that insurance companies appear to be boosting rates partly to make up for price wars in the 1990s, when competition kept premiums low. It also indicated that, in some states, medical organizations and regulators have failed to weed out bad doctors. That’s all fine and good, but why should the patients pay the price? According to the American Medical Association’s 1997 Socioeconomic Monitoring System Survey, the average NET annual income for a self-employed doctor was $198,000.00. And that was five years ago. The current proposed $250,000.00 medical malpractice recovery cap for victims pales in comparison. Since the 1990’s, although the doctors complain that their malpractice premiums have soared nationally, studies show that the only thing that has soared is their income. Even salaried doctors, recruited for hospitals, have seen a general increase their salaries. According to a recent survey conducted by Merritt, Hawkins & Associates, an Irving, Texas-based recruitment firm, competition for desirable candidates has hospitals offering tremendous increases to doctors, reports Joe R. Smith, vice president for Merritt Hawkins' Midwest division. He confirmed that the high-end offers for radiologists, for example, reached $600,000 this past year, compared with $500,000 the year before. High-end offers for cardiologists also increased substantially, from $465,000 to $500,000, according to the survey. So, what is the real reason for the rise in malpractice costs? USA Today reported in its March 4, 2003 article that research generated by The National Conference of State Legislatures indicated that insurers are now spending much more to avoid paying claims. In fact, the report determined that they spent 33% more from 2000 to 2001. According to the Physician Insurer’s Association of America, (the lobbying group for doctor-owned insurance firms), insurance companies’ investment income represented 47% of the companies' revenue in 1995, but only 31% in 2001. No wonder they are crying. But then again, who hasn’t lost money in the investment market? Here is the most compelling statistic. According to the most recent reports of the Physician Insurer’s Association of America, as also recently reported in USA Today, two-thirds of patients who file a claim don't get a dime. The reports showed that about 61% of cases are dismissed or dropped, and 32% are settled, with average payouts of $300,000. Only 7% ever go to trial. Patients only win one in five cases — about 1.3% of all claims. Sounds like the system is working, but for whom? Even the President of the Physician Insurers, Larry Smarr, admitted when referring to the trial lawyers, that “They don't win often, but when they do, they win big." Clearly it is the selected few that make the news. According to a 1990 Harvard University study, only one of eight victims of medical negligence ever files a claim. And then, trying to litigate that claim is a financial and emotional nightmare. Doctors do not want to testify to a colleague's mistakes, and jurors don’t like to admit that doctors are negligent. The truth is that any lawyer who takes on a medical malpractice suit is going to have to shell out of his or her own pocket a tremendous amount of money for costs such as expert fees, depositions, etc. That does not include the often debilitating time investment, for which the lawyer and the firm will never recover if they are one of the 4 out of 5 plaintiffs that lose. And, of course, if they are unfortunate enough to be one of those 4 out of 5, that lawyer will never recover the costs paid out of pocket. In short, a lawyer would have to be absolutely insane to pursue a frivolous medical malpractice claim. Medical negligence is often overwhelming, devastating, and avoidable with a reasonable standard of care. The large verdicts are the cases that make the news, not the thousands of cases that fall by the wayside because it is simply too difficult to sue a doctor. Don’t let the smoke and mirrors distract your eye from the bouncing ball. Stay focused on the real perpetrators, and not the bearers of the bad news. Consider a cap on the profits of the insurance companies, not on Jessica Scantillan’s family’s ability to recover for negligence. |
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