February « 2010 « My Medical Malpractice Insurance News

February 26, 2010

White House Health Care Summit and Medical Malpractice Insurance Reform

Filed under: Congress, Insurance, Medical Malpractice Insurance, Op/Ed, Patients, Physicians, President Obama, Tort Reform — admin @ 10:17 am

Yesterday’s White House health summit didn’t produce much of anything yesterday except to show that the Republicans and Democrats are still extremely far from agreeing on much of anything.

We do know from past statements from President Obama that he is interested in working with the leaders of the Republican party to try and do something about the rising, and sometimes obscene costs of professional medical liability insurance.

Yesterday however, we heard from the second most powerful Democratic in the Senate, Dick Durbin from Illinois. He brought up medical malpractice insurance and had some things to say that clearly shows that even though President Obama is interested in working with the Republicans on this, Democrats may not budge. Durbin, before he joined the Senate was a medical malpractice insurance trial lawyer that represented both sides.

A few quotes from Senator Dick Durbin, thanks to the transcript provided by the Washington Post.

The point that’s been made by the president is if we do believe the Congressional Budget Office, when Orrin Hatch asked them how much will we save if we implement the Republican plan on medical malpractice from the House, they said $54 billion over 10 years; $5.4 billion a year is a lot of money, except in the context of the $2.5 trillion bill that we pay each year for health care. It represents one-fifth of 1 percent of the amount of money we spend each year on health care.

The Congressional Budget Office said something else. They said and as you lose accountability for what the doctors and hospitals are doing, more people will die — 4,800 a year, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s reference to this study.

(Found this on Youtube, a small bit of Senator Dubin’s take on Medical Malpractice Insurance reform):

Now, the Institute of Medicine tells us 98,000 people a year die in America because of medical malpractice. I think there are things that we have put in this bill to change that. Most of you have heard of this Dr. Gawande. We’ve read him. I’ve talked to him on the phone. His “Checklist Manifesto” is a very basic approach to reducing medical errors, which is what we should be focused on. (more…)

Comments (0)

February 24, 2010

PIA Hails Removal of Medical Malpractice Insurers From Bill Restricting Insurance Antitrust Exemption

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: doctors, heath insurance, Insurance, liability insurance, Medical Malpractice Insurance, medmal, Patients, Physicians, President Barack Obama, Tort Reform — admin @ 1:41 pm

side note: This is actually a big deal. If the medical liability insurance industry had lost its anti-trust exemption, in all likelihood, malpractice premiums would have risen simply out of fear of the unknown. Sharing underwriting data is key to the medmal insurers ability to forecast losses.

The National Association of Professional Insurance Agents (PIA) is hailing the elimination of medical malpractice insurers from the draft of a bill restricting the limited federal insurance antitrust exemption under the McCarran-Ferguson Act.

According to the draft of the bill, to be called the Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act, posted on the House Rules Committee website as “text of bill to be introduced,” the scope of the bill has been narrowed to cover health insurers, but not medical malpractice insurers.

“The inclusion of medical malpractice insurance, a property/casualty product, was particularly inappropriate in that it did not relate directly to health insurance,” said PIA National Director of Federal Affairs Mike Becker. “A reduction in medical malpractice insurance rates is best achieved through separate legislation addressing tort reform.”
(more…)

Comments (0)

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.

Comments (0)

February 22, 2010

February 19, 2010

Another view of the recent Illinois Supreme Court verdict on Medical Malpractice Insurance

side note: Here’s a good look at the potential impact — or lack thereof — by the Illinois Supreme Court decision on medical malpractice caps.

Although medical malpractice awards climbed in the years before Illinois put limits on them, opponents disagree on the impact of the recent Supreme Court’s ruling striking down the caps.

The average award for emotional harm in medical malpractice cases increased 437 percent in the seven years leading up to creation of the 2005 law capping non-economic damages, according to data from the Cook County Jury Verdict Reporter. Rates were highest in 2004, the year before award caps were enacted, with an average award of $4.8 million.

Physicians argue that high awards drive up insurance premiums and make health care more expensive.

“When the cap was reinstated in 2005, premiums for Chicago physicians stabilized and even began to shrink,” said J. James Rohack, president of the American Medical Association in a statement after the court ruling. Before caps on damages, premiums rose steadily 10 to 12 percent a year between 1997 and 2005, Rohack said.

The Medical Malpractice Act limited the amount victims could receive for emotional harm to $500,000 from doctors and $1 million from hospitals.The Illinois Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional earlier this month. This was the third time the court ruled against medical malpractice award caps.

Critics of award caps say the averages don’t tell the entire story.

“A single larger case can skew those numbers,” said Peter Flowers, president of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association. “So looking at [the award amounts] as an average, isn’t really a clear assessment.”
(more…)

Comments (0)

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.

Comments (0)

February 17, 2010

The Myth of the Frivolous Medical Malpractice Lawsuit

Filed under: Congress, Defensive Medicine, Medical Malpractice Insurance, President Barack Obama, Tort Reform, doctors, medical malpractice insurance companies, medical malpractice insurance quote, physician malpractice insurance, professional medical liability insurance — Tags: doctors, heath insurance, Insurance, Medical Malpractice Insurance, medmal, Patients, Physicians, Tort Reform — admin @ 1:36 pm

side note: What this article fails to examine is that even if actual medical malpractice awards are few and far between, the cost of litigating them is a burden on the system.

A report by Public Citizen debunks the myth of frivolous medical malpractice claims. In fact, the report indicates that medical malpractice payments are at record lows.

The report provides some interesting statistics that the tort reform movement neglects to mention in their constant ranting about trial lawyers preying on the medical community. The report states that there are a least 3 deaths caused by medical errors for every single medical malpractice payment of any kind.

These statistics make clear that medical malpractice awards are actually rare, and perhaps more rare than can be justified by public safety. Public Citizen reviewed the National Practitioner Data Bank which has been tracking this data since 1990. The group found that there were only 11,037 payments in 2008 nationally. This number was right at 31% lower than the average number of payments in all previous years.

These numbers reflect 13.5 medical malpractice payments per million physicians in 2006 which apparently is the last available data for the number of practicing physicians U.S. The costs of medical malpractice, including insurance premiums, is one fifth of one percent of all health care costs.

In fact, if anything, there are far fewer lawsuits than are justified by actual medical negligence. The Public Citizen report cites a 1999 study entitled “To Err Is Human” from the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM). The IOM study found that between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans die each year due to avoidable medical errors. In 1999, fewer than 15,000 people total, including non-fatal incidents, received any compensation at all for their injuries. In 2008, that number was just over 11,000.
(more…)

Comments (0)

February 16, 2010

Tort reform won’t control health spending

Filed under: Congress, Health Insurance Coverage, Medicare, Tort Reform, doctor malpractice insurance, doctors — Tags: chicago malpractice insurance, doctors, heath insurance, Insurance, liability insurance, Medical Malpractice Insurance, medmal, Physicians, President Barack Obama, Tort Reform — 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…)

Comments (0)

February 15, 2010

New Wave of Medical Schools to open in the United States

Filed under: California Medical Malpractice Insurance, Florida Medical Malpractice Insurance, Georgia Medical Malpractice Insurance, History, Illinois Medical Malpractice Insurance, Insurance, Medical Malpractice Insurance, New Jersey Medical Malpractice Insurance, New York Medical Malpractice Insurance, North Carolina Medical Malpractice Insurance, Ohio Medical Malpractice Insurance, Op/Ed, Physicians, South Carolina Medical Malpractice Insurance — admin @ 10:31 am

The New York Times had an interesting article about a boom of new medical schools in the US. They site the fact that “These new schools are seeking to address an imbalance in American medicine that has been growing for a quarter century. Many bright students were fleeing to offshore medical schools, or giving up hope entirely, when they could not get into domestic schools. Meanwhile, American hospitals were using foreign-trained and foreign-born physicians to fill medical residencies. During the 1980s and ’90s only one new medical school was established.

‘Huge numbers of qualified American kids were not getting into American medical schools or going abroad to study,’Dr. Lawrence G. Smith, dean of the proposed Hofstra University School of Medicine, in Hempstead, N.Y., which is not yet recruiting students, said last week. ‘I think it was a kind of wake-up call.’”

With the growing trend of doctor shortages, especially Primary Care Providers happening in states such as Texas, Illinois, Ohio, Florida, California, New York, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey and others, this couldn’t come at a better time.

One of the things we should worry about is how good these medical schools will be? This is however a step towards fixing a growing problem.

Any physician needing a free medical malpractice insurance quote can click here.

Staff
MyMedicalMalpracticeInsurance.com

Comments (0)

Utah Medical Malpractice bill seeks fair hearing

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: chicago malpractice insurance, doctors, heath insurance, liability insurance, Medical Malpractice Insurance, medmal, Patients, Physicians, President Barack Obama, Tort Reform — admin @ 10:26 am

side note: Now that tort reform has become the oft-parroted republican talking point, we could be looking at an opportunity at the state level. So what if there is no federal tort reform? With the groundswell of conservative and independent voters seemingly convinced that medical malpractice lawsuit reform is the answer to skyrocketing healthcare costs, shouldn’t it be easier to accomplish tort reforms at a state level now?

After several detours, a controversial bill that would cap medical malpractice awards for pain and suffering at $250,000 has now landed in the Senate Natural Resources Committee for debate.

“I was just trying to determine the relevance of medical malpractice with animals,” Sen. Jon Greiner, R-Ogden, said of the committee-shuffling for SB145 that took place on the Senate floor this week. “I guess we’ll find out.”

The “med-mal” bill, sponsored by Sen. Stuart Adams, R-Layton, was first scheduled to go before the Senate Health and Human Services committee, chaired by Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan. It later was sent to Business and Labor. Then it shifted to Natural Resources.

Because of its subject matter, the bill might logically have been routed to the Judiciary Committee, but Senate President Michael Waddoups believed the tort-reform measure wouldn’t get a fair shake there.

“There are so many games that have been played, so much bias in some of the committees,” Waddoups said, noting friction between the Health and Judiciary committees over which panel could handle SB145.
(more…)

Comments (0)

Older Posts »