My Medical Malpractice Insurance

August 31, 2010

Even with malpractice insurance, doctors opt for expensive, defensive medicine

Filed under: Congress, Defensive Medicine, Doctor Liability Insurance, Health Care, Health Insurance Coverage, History, Insurance, Malpractice Insurance, Medical Liability Insurance, Medical Malpractice Insurance, Patients, Physicians, President Barack Obama, Tort Reform, doctor malpractice insurance, doctors, med mal insurance — admin @ 10:40 am

side note: This is unfortunately all too common among doctors in our country. I’d say most, if not all people who want to end up in medicine get in for the right reasons: they want to help people. We live in a world however that is filled with lawsuits and lawyers….that will for the most part, take on any case, even if they themselves believe it’s without merit. This leads to the 83% of frivolous lawsuits that are put through our legal system each year. We are at a crossroads in regards to our health care……the costs are spiraling out of control, and one of the first steps we can take is to help protect our physicians, doctors and other healthcare professionals from unfair lawsuits. This leads the doctors to perform unnecessary tests….etc, which leads to more expensive healthcare costs…..and when you start doing this to most people…..the costs are staggering! Defensive Medicine…or CYA medicine (Cover Your Ass) needs to be addressed! If it is….then other things such as frivolous lawsuits will start to decline…along with healthcare costs. That will lead to lower medical malpractice insurance costs for doctors.

By Manoj Jain
Special to The Washington Post

Doctor learns that a medical malpractice claim is being filed against him. Will this raise the cost of his medical malpractice insurance? Will this cause him to practice defensive medicine?Some months ago, the receptionist in my clinic handed me a registered letter. The name of the sender seemed familiar. “Dear Sir,” the letter read. “Please be advised that this letter serves as official notice that I am considering a potential claim against you in a medical Malpractice claim in regard to my husband. . . .” I stood, stunned. My white coat, which held the daily tools of my profession — my list of patients, the Sanford antibiotic manual, a black stethoscope — felt extraordinarily heavy.

While my receptionist and staff made themselves busy and waited for my reaction, I struggled to recall the patient, so many patients ago . . . and my alleged misdeed. I checked the administrative data, which showed that the man had died about a year before. Had I missed a lab test among the hundreds that I order each week? Had I failed to read a blood culture report? Had some error of mine resulted in his death?

I generally think of myself as a confident and conscientious practitioner, but my pulse was racing and my palms were moist as I reviewed the patient’s hospital chart that afternoon. He had been a man in his late 60s with a bacterial infection in his lungs. I checked the reports on all the cultures I had ordered: blood, urine, sputum. Then I checked the antibiotics I had prescribed. There was no mismatch; he had been on appropriate treatment. I asked another doctor to double-check me.

Had I been negligent? No.

I was relieved — but still accused. More important, the letter made me reflect on the paradoxes of our medical malpractice system.

Most malpractice suits turn out to be against doctors who were not at fault. Of every 100 malpractice claims filed, only 17 appeared to involve a negligent injury, such as a medication overdose resulting in death, according to a 2004 New England Journal of Medicine review.

This means that patients and lawyers appear to be suing the doctors and hospitals for non-negligent injury 83 percent of the time.

READ REST OF ARTICLE

May 17, 2010

For High Pay, Doctors are Tops

Filed under: Health Insurance Coverage, Insurance, Medical Malpractice Insurance, OB/GYN malpractice insurance, doctor malpractice insurance, doctors, medical malpractice insurance companies, physician malpractice insurance — admin @ 2:29 pm

Side note: Forbes has come out with the list of America’s Best and Worst Paying careers. Unsurprisingly, doctors and surgeons come out on top, with 9 of the 10 best-paying jobs being in the medical field. However, the article is also careful to note that physicians (particularly specialists and surgeons) face a very high cost of practicing their profession, including student loans averaging $150,000 and yearly medical malpractice insurance costs that can be well over $100,000, depending on your specialty and location.

Of course, not all of these costs can be controlled, but there are strategies to control your med mal insurance costs. For more information, check out our series of articles on strategies to lower your medical liability insurance costs. Click and you can also compare Medical Malpractice Insurance Rates over time for your state and/or specialty.

By Helen Coster
Forbes.com

Chief executives continue to make headlines for what many consider to be their excessive pay, but according to government data released Monday, doctors, on average, do even better. They have the best-paid jobs in the country.

(more…)

April 30, 2010

Why Physicians Oppose The Health Care Reform Bill

Filed under: American Medical Association, Congress, Electronic Medical Records, Health Insurance Coverage, History, Insurance, Medical Malpractice Insurance, Medicare, Op/Ed, Patients, Physicians, President Barack Obama, Tort Reform, doctors, hospitals, liability insurance — admin @ 2:14 pm

side note: Well this article is alarming, and it reflects a number of physicians who I’ve talked with concerning the health care bill just passed by the Federal Government. They feel that their interests were not taken into account when the details of the bill were being hammered out. One of the biggest issues that Dr. Palestrant of SERMO has is that reasonable Tort Reform wasn’t added to the finalized version of the health care bill. We do agree with Dr. Palenstrant that with the recent Medicare cuts for doctors and the, what seems like an annual increase in medical malpractice insurance rates for physicians will cause headaches for some. With that being said, this bill was passed, and now we need to move forward and figure out what’s best for doctors, patients and the health care industry as a whole. One thing is for sure, this isn’t the last we’ve heard of Congress tinkering with the health care system.

by Daniel Palestrant (OP/ED)
Forbes.com
Daniel Palestrant, MD, is founder and chief executive officer of Cambridge, Mass.-based Sermo, the largest online physician community, where more than 112,000 physicians collaborate to improve patient care.

After the debate has ended and the lobbyists have moved on to their next clients, health care will be left the way it started, a physician and a patient sitting in a room trying as best as they can to prolong health and forestall sickness. Fortunately the many victories and losses claimed by both ends of the political spectrum will not change this shared pursuit.

So then why has reform that promises to get millions more in a discourse with their doctors been so polarizing? Making sure more Americans have health insurance can only be a major victory, right? Too bad the medical establishment is not celebrating. In fact, the mood in those exams rooms is downright morose.

In tens of thousands of exam rooms all over the country physicians are struggling to make sense of the 2,000-plus pages of the reform bill. A recently released poll of more than 2,000 physicians, conducted by Athenahealth and Sermo, is alarming. The poll, part of a broader Physician Sentiment Index, indicates that 79% of physicians are less optimistic about medicine since the passage of health care reform. Fifty-three percent indicate they will consider opting out of insurance plans with passage of the bill. Worst of all, 66% indicate that they will consider opting out of all government-run programs. The same reform bill that will provide “care for all” may drive away more physician caregivers than attract previously uninsured patients. What a predicament that would be.

Many may find the data from the poll puzzling. How could physicians be so pessimistic about a bill that clearly has so many positives? For one, the bill addresses none of the issues most consistently ranked by physicians as the most critical for lowering costs and improving access. Tort reform, streamlining billing and payment, and fixing the flawed government formula for calculating physician reimbursement are given little, if any, serious attention.

What physicians knew then and certainly know now is that instead of fixing these issues, the government will be forced to take the path of least resistance to save money (that is to say the path with the least special interest resistance). That means reducing physician reimbursement, just as the country is counting on even more physicians to be available.

Physicians knew the health care bill had a “gotcha” buried deep inside. The only way it could be called “budget-neutral” was to implement significant reductions in physician payments. So just as we are hoping more physicians become available to treat the influx of 31 million more patients, the government is implementing a massive reduction in physician reimbursement (a 21% reduction in physician reimbursement went into effect April 1 after several years of no adjustments for inflation, meaning physician reimbursement has been declining for several years already).

In a moment of complete legislative hypocrisy, the proponents were touting one health care bill that included cost estimates that assumed a massive reduction in payments while another bill moved its way through Congress that would reverse those cuts (the bill reversing the cuts was ultimately defeated, meaning the cuts did go into effect). At some point, basic supply and demand will kick in, and there will be insufficient physician resources for treating patients.

But what of the much-touted American Medical Association’s support for the bill? The AMA, which counts less than 10% of its $300 million dollars in revenue from physician membership dues (the rest comes from a government sanctioned monopoly whereby the AMA sells the billing codes upon which the entire health care system relies) had little choice but to endorse the bill, lest the government retract its exclusive license on billing codes. Again physicians know what the public does not: Less than 15% of practicing physicians are AMA members, so any AMA support is more a reflection of the AMA’s financial interests than what physicians in this country truly want. This is a situation that proved opportunistic to proponents of the bill but could prove painful for America’s health care system.

READ REST OF FORBES ARTICLE HERE

Americans Still Split Over New Health Reform Law

Filed under: Congress, Health Insurance Coverage, History, Insurance, Medical Malpractice Insurance, Patients, Physicians, President Barack Obama, Tort Reform, doctors, liability insurance — admin @ 12:25 pm

side note: This has been a common theme across the board. I have spoken with hundreds of folks who come from different backgrounds…..have different incomes, and live in areas across the United States. As this article attests, most people know that his going to cover a majority of the uninsured. What they differ on is what is actually going to happen and how it will effect them and their families. I’m glad this article touched briefly on medical malpractice insurance for physicians. There was very little attempt by Washington Democrats to add this to the final health care bill. The only Democrat who seemed willing to work on this with the members of the GOP was President Obama. He appeared, at least in rhetoric form, that he was interested in finding a way to curb physician liability insurance costs. Maybe this was only his way of reaching across the aisle, but it didn’t really matter, if the President talks about professional medical liability insurance, then the members of Congress usually end up at least discussing options. Will doctor liability insurance be a part of the next bill that adds or takes away from the recently passed legislation? Only time will tell………but we at MyMedicalMalpracticeInsurance.com believe it will because now that physicians are going to have 40 million plus new customers, and with an expected shortage of family practice doctors expected in the future, physicians will be forced to see more people in the same amount of hours, which will lead to more risk of liability. Will this force med-mal insurance rates to inch higher? Probably…..which will thrust Tort Reform back into the national conversation.

By Karen Pallarito
HealthDay Reporter
HealthDay/ScoutNews LLC
Business Week
A majority supports expanding insurance, but most say the measure makes the wrong changes, poll finds

FRIDAY, April 30 (HealthDay News) — One month after President Barack Obama signed the historic health-reform bill into law, Americans remain divided on the measure, with many people still unsure how it will affect them, a new Harris Interactive/HealthDay poll finds.

Supporters and opponents of the reform package are roughly equally divided, 42 percent to 44 percent respectively, and most of those who oppose the new law (81 percent) say it makes the “wrong changes.”

“They are shoveling it down our throats without explaining it to the American people, and no one knows what it entails,” said a 64-year-old female Democrat who participated in the poll.

Thirty-nine percent said the new law will be “bad” for people like them, and 26 percent aren’t sure.

About the only thing that people agreed on — by a 58 percent to 24 percent majority — is that the legislation will provide many more Americans with adequate health insurance.

“The public is divided partly because of ideological reasons, partly because of partisanship and partly because most people don’t see this as benefiting them. They see it as benefiting the uninsured,” said Humphrey Taylor, chairman of The Harris Poll, a service of Harris Interactive.

Some 15.4 percent of the population, or 46.3 million Americans, lack health insurance coverage, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Those 2008 figures, however, do not count people who recently lost health insurance coverage amid widespread job losses.

The centerpiece of the voluminous health reform package is an expansion of health insurance. By 2019, an additional 32 million uninsured people will gain coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The measure also allows young adults to stay on their parents’ health insurance plan until age 26, and that change takes effect this year.

“I think that people are optimistic about stuff that they know about for sure, which is the under-26 provision, and then just the fuzzy nature of just what’s been promised to them,” said Stephen T. Parente, director of the Medical Industry Leadership Institute at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and a former adviser to Republican Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain.

Expanding coverage to children under 26 “promises to be a relatively cheap and easy way to cover a group that was clearly disadvantaged under the old system,” noted Pamela Farley Short, professor of health policy and administration and director of the Center for Health Care and Policy Research at Pennsylvania State University.

“It will give parents peace of mind and save them money if they were paying for COBRA extensions or individual policies so their kids would not be uninsured,” she explained. “So I think that change will be popular and may help to build support for the exchanges and the big expansion of coverage in 2014.”

However, on other measures of the legislation’s impact, public opinion is mixed, the Harris Interactive/HealthDay poll found. More people think the plan will be bad for the quality of care in America (40 percent to 34 percent), for containing the cost of health care (41 percent to 35 percent) and for strengthening the economy (42 percent to 29 percent).

People often define quality in terms of access to the doctors they like, but “it’s not clear any of this really changes or affects that,” Parente said.

And he added, “No one is unequivocally saying this is going to solve the cost problem.”

While President Obama said his plan would “bring down the cost of health care for millions of families, businesses, and the federal government,” many have questioned the legislation’s cost-containment provisions.

In a report issued last week, Chief Medicare Actuary Richard S. Foster said overall national health expenditures under the health-reform package would increase by an estimated $311 billion, or 0.9 percent, compared with the amounts that would otherwise be spent from 2010 to 2019.

Meanwhile, some health insurers have proposed steep premium rate increases in anticipation of health reform.

Anthem Blue Cross of California, a unit of Indianapolis-based Wellpoint Inc., the nation’s largest insurer, in February proposed raising insurance rates as much as 39 percent on some policyholders in California. The company twice delayed the rate hikes in the wake of negative publicity and, on Thursday, the California Department of Insurance announced that Anthem had withdrawn the rate-hike request. Prompted by Anthem’s proposed rate increases, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) proposed legislation that would grant authority to the federal government to review “potentially unreasonable” rate increases and has vowed to press ahead with the measure.

So how would opponents change the new health-reform package?

A 41-year-old Independent male poll participant would like to see “an actual way to pay for this bill without mortgaging our great grandchildren.” A Republican male, age 77, said it should have included malpractice limits. Creating a national insurance exchange would be more efficient than the state-based exchanges in the law, said an Independent female, age 30.

READ REST OF STORY

Study Shows ‘Invisible’ Burden of Family Doctors

Filed under: Congress, Electronic Medical Records, Health Insurance Coverage, Insurance, Medical Malpractice Insurance, Physicians, President Barack Obama, doctors, hospitals, liability insurance — admin @ 9:16 am

Side note: Primary care physicians are over-burdened with administrative tasks and un-paid patient follow-up activities. By converting to Electronic Health Records, these doctors can improve work-flow and potentially receive payments through Medicare for preventative health programs that can be tracked using EHR. Currently, there is $19 billion set aside from last year’s stimulus package to help fund these transitions. By converting to EHR, many analysts think that physicians will lower their medical malpractice insurance costs, due to better patient-knowledge and tracking.

By STEVE LOHR
The New York Times

A new study detailing the uncompensated work burden on family doctors points to the need to change how they are paid, medical experts say — particularly as the new health care law promises to add millions more patients to the system.

Family doctors make up the embattled front line of the nation’s health care system. They earn about half the money of specialists who focus on treating particular ailments or parts of the body. That is a reason less than 10 percent of medical school graduates choose so-called primary care, which includes general internists and pediatricians.

Worsening shortages of family doctors were being predicted even before the recent health care legislation, which opened the door to an estimated 30 million newly insured people who will begin making appointments for checkups and other care.

“There is already enormous pressure on primary care, and more is coming,” said Dr. Thomas Bodenheimer, a professor of family medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Comparatively modest salaries and rising patient numbers are part of the challenge, medical experts say. But so is the breadth of the unpaid work performed by family doctors. A study published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine measured that problem precisely, using computerized patient records and reporting systems to track all the tasks done in a five-physician practice over a year. (more…)

April 26, 2010

In time, Congress could be forced to revisit health care overhaul to find more savings

Filed under: Congress, Health Insurance Coverage, Medical Malpractice Insurance, Physicians — admin @ 11:22 am

side note: Though the health care overhaul has been signed into law, there are still questions about its affect on the economy and the rising cost of care. Among these concerns is the spiraling cost of medical malpractice insurance. With physicians paying high premiums, limits on liability may need to be considered in the future to help keep health care costs reasonable. Limits on medical malpractice liability is among one of several cost-saving ideas mentioned in the following article.

by RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR

Chicago Tribune
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — What’s it going to cost me?

That’s the single biggest unanswered question about President Barack Obama’s new health care overhaul law — and its weak spot.

Many experts believe the law falls short on taming costs, and that will force Congress to revisit health care in a few years.

While it seems hard to believe now, Republicans might want to participate in a debate over costs, perhaps opening the way for limits on malpractice lawsuits and other ideas they’ve advocated.

“Now that the baseline question of coverage has been answered, it would be irresponsible if we didn’t come back and try to do more on costs,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who voted for the bill and led efforts to squeeze more savings.

“I think there is going to be a debate in the Republican Party on whether they should waste all their energy on repeal or make an effort to do something on cost containment,” Warner said.

For now, the political parties are too polarized — and lawmakers too exhausted — to contemplate health care 2.0. Conservatives are planning court challenges, and some Republican leaders hold out the promise of repeal. But economic reality probably will bring lawmakers back to the table.

Insurance premiums are likely to keep going up over the next few years. Experts predict that the law’s early benefits — such as expanded coverage for children and young adults — could nudge rates a little higher than would otherwise have been the case. Also, insurers and medical providers could try to raise their prices ahead of big shifts set for 2014.

Under the 10-year, $1 trillion plan, 2014 is when competitive insurance markets for individuals and small businesses are expected to open, and tax credits start flowing to help millions of middle-class households now uninsured. Medicaid will expand and pick up millions of low-income people. Most Americans would be required to carry health insurance, except in cases of financial hardship. Insurers no longer could turn away those in poor health. (more…)

March 4, 2010

Healthcare Bill being pushed by White House to be passed by Easter?

Filed under: Congress, Health Insurance Coverage, History, Insurance, Medical Malpractice Insurance, Op/Ed, Physicians, President Barack Obama, Tort Reform — admin @ 11:13 am

President Obama has made a clear and concise statement to the leadership in both Chambers that he wants to get his bill passed ASAP.

After scouring blogs on the right, left and middle….it doesn’t appear that the President will have enough votes to get this done. Politics however, can change in a moments notice. We know that deals are being made behind closed doors….so it’ll be interesting to see if the President has enough in his back pocket to dangle in front of conservaDems and Republicans.

Will the hard-working physicians in this country get what they want in this bill? They desperately need protection from the trial lawyers who come after them with such frivolous lawsuits. We need to lower the rates of medical malpractice insurance so docs can get back to doing what they do best: practicing medicine and helping their patients.

February 23, 2010

A New Study on How to Prevent and Control Hypertension

Filed under: Congress, Health Education, Health Insurance Coverage, Insurance, Medical Malpractice Insurance, Op/Ed, Physicians — admin @ 7:59 am

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has released a new report that identifies “high-priority areas on which public health organizations and professionals should focus in order to accelerate progress in hypertension reduction and control.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) asked the IOM to create this report because hypertension is one of the leading causes of death in the United States. One in six Americans die every year from high blood pressure. This in turn puts enormous pressure on our health care system, it’s estimated that $73.4 billion dollars, direct and indirect was spent in 2009.

With the health care debate front and center in most conversations in this country, we need to start battling the costs associated with the way we treat our citizens….in addition, we need to educate people how to take better care of themselves. The two areas that they can focus on is eating more fruits and vegetables and getting more physical activity during the day. With the constant rising costs of medical malpractice insurance for doctors, health care costs for individuals and group plans, and an aging population that is going to strain our economy…..we need to start making these changes yesterday.

February 18, 2010

Health Insurers reap record profits in 2009

Filed under: Health Insurance Coverage, Medical Malpractice Insurance, Patients, Physicians — admin @ 1:25 pm

We found out last week that America’s five largest health insurance organizations had profits of $12.2 billion dollars in 2009. Those insurance companies include United Health, Cigna, Aetna, Wellpoint and Humana. This was nearly a 60% increase over the previous year. The backwards thing about these profits is that they happened during the worst economic downturn since the 1930’s.

A few statistics about these companies shows exactly where the profits came from:

1. 2.7 million people lost their private health plans
2. 60% of these companies sliced the percentage of premiums they spent on their customers’ medical care.
3. The above money was shifted to corporate salaries, and profits.
4. Where else did the money go? Well….try $16.8 million was spent on lobbying Congress against any type of reform of our health care system.

We see a few problems with the above, besides the fact that these giant companies moves mirror those of the large banking institutions. We look at ourselves as being advocates for physicians. They spend a ton of their lives learning a skill that most are incapable of obtaining. We want physicians to have access to as many patients as they can…for many doctors, this is how they make a living. Especially with the high cost of medical malpractice insurance. Losing 2.7 million potential patients doesn’t seem like the right direction. Maybe Congress can actually get something right and make the changes to protect physicians in their practice, especially against “Lionel Hutz”-type trial lawyers……and get back to doing what they were trained to do: helping their patients.

February 16, 2010

Tort reform won’t control health spending

Filed under: Congress, Health Insurance Coverage, Medicare, Tort Reform, doctor malpractice insurance, doctors — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — admin @ 9:01 am

side note: tort reform probably will not save any money in terms of the overall cost of healthcare in America, but it is needed to improve access to healthcare. In tort hellhole counties, many doctors will not practice because the price of medical liability insurance is cost prohibitive, creating a doctor shortage. No, tort reform probably won’t save on the cost of healthcare, but it can be a fix to the growing access to care problem in many states.

Tort reform has become a sort of all-purpose Republican cure for what ails the American health care system.

Indeed, long before GOP leaders acknowledged any need for health care reform, Republicans were pushing caps on damages in medical malpractice suits.

Now that a majority of Americans — 75 percent in a poll released Friday — see the need for health care reform, Republicans are trotting out damage caps as a way to control soaring health care spending. Their claim probably will get a prominent mention from GOP leaders at President Barack Obama’s bipartisan health care summit on Feb. 25.

There might be good reasons to consider changes in how malpractice suits are handled. But the idea that tort reform would significantly slow, or even alter, the trajectory of U.S. health care spending is not among them.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that tort reform could save $41 billion over the next decade, a figure now being touted by proponents.

To most of us, $41 billion is a lot of money. In the world of health care, it’s a tiny drop in a very large ocean. Between now and 2019, annual health care spending will increase by $2 trillion. Not to $2 trillion. It will grow by $2 trillion, from $2.5 trillion to about $4.5 trillion.

The projected savings from capping malpractice awards works out to a 2 percent reduction in what we otherwise would spend.
(more…)

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