Medical Malpractice Law News provies a list of 28 things that should never happen in a hospital. These are a list of medical events that should not happen in the absence of negligence. Of course, many of these adverse events listed could happen in the absence of medical or hospital malpractice.
I found a Maryland Law Review article today that discusses what precipitated the birth Medical Mutual, the insurance company that insurers most Maryland doctors.
In 1974, the malpractice carrier for eighty-five percent was not Medical Mutual but St. Paul who informed doctors that because the Insurance Commissioner had refused the commissioner’s request to increase medical malpractice insurance rates, it would stop selling new malpractice policies in Maryland.
In response, the General Assembly created the Medical Mutual to provide malpractice insurance to Maryland health care providers. I had no idea that a previous "malpractice crisis" (in quotes because I'm always skeptical) spawned Medical Mutual while I was in elementary school.
Medical Mutual competes against other malpractice insurance companies and obviously does so competitively or they would not have so many doctors. So apparently, the idea spawned 34 years ago still works quite well today.
One question you will here Maryland medical malpractice lawyers asking each other is do you need to file in health claims arbitration if the case if filed in federal court. It is a good question because it is a tough question whether under the Erie Doctrine, Maryland's health claims arbitration is "substantive" or "procedural."
While the analysis is tricky, the answer is clear. In Davison v. Sinai Hospital of Baltimore, Inc., 462 F. Supp. 778 (1978), the court found that District Court for the District of Maryland held that mandatory arbitration of Maryland medical malpractice lawsuits are a prerequisite to trial.
So if you have a federal medical malpractice case - usually a diversity case in a jurisdiction where you are not excited about the potential jurors - you still need to begin down the Maryland Health Claims Arbitration path.
More evidence doctors are focusing on insurance companies instead of medical malpractice lawyers. The American Medical Association has a new campaign called “the Cure for Claims.” Their mission: to force/encourage health insurers to pay claims quickly.
The AMA claims that $210 billion is added to the cost of health care because insurance companies do not pay claims in a timely manner. I’m doubting the $210 billion but I get the point. Look, medical malpractice lawyers in Maryland and around the country are nodding their heads because they know how difficult insurance companies can be. They business goal is to take in premiums and deny claims. (That line is flip and at times unfair but you get the point.)
For all of the nonsense about medical malpractice tort reform, doctors are now realizing that the real way to increase their profits and their salaries is to take on the insurance companies.
More evidence doctors are focusing on insurance companies instead of medical malpractice lawyers. The American Medical Association has a new campaign called “the Cure for Claims.” Their mission: to force/encourage health insurers to pay claims quickly.
The AMA claims that $210 billion is added to the cost of health care because insurance companies do not pay claims in a timely manner. I’m doubting the $210 billion but I get the point. Look, medical malpractice lawyers in Maryland and around the country are nodding their heads because they know how difficult insurance companies can be. They business goal is to take in premiums and deny claims. (That line is flip and at times unfair but you get the point.)
For all of the nonsense about medical malpractice tort reform, doctors are now realizing that the real way to increase their profits and their salaries is to take on the insurance companies.
Here are two sample medical malpractice lawsuits:
Sample Medical Malpractice Lawsuit #1
Sample Medical Malpractice Lawsuit #2
We provide these sample lawsuits as a guide to medicial malpractice lawyers in Maryland and around the country who are filing medical malpractice complaints.
As the Internet is cluttered with personal information, there is increasing talk in legal journals about using blogs Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking Web sites, to learn more about potential jurors. The Internet provides such a rich resource of information about potential and even already seated jurors.
The problem in Maryland medical malpractice lawyers using this kind of resource is that it is very difficult logistically. Once the jury walks into the room, your computer is facing the jurors. There really is not time under Maryland quick voir dire selection to pass the jurors information along. Once a jury is already seated, I think it is real hard to find information about that juror to tailor your opening or closing statements around a particularly juror.
In a medical malpractice trial in Pittsburgh, the jury found that the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center at Shadyside's care of the Plaintiff was both medical negligence and that the it was the cause of the death of a man. The jury awarded $2.5 million under the Pennsylvania Wrongful Death Act. The gave no damages for under the Pennsylvania Survival Act.
Incredibly, the jury issued a statement as to why: "After eight days of testimony in the case of Rettger v. UPMC Shadyside, it is the unanimous opinion of the jury that no amount of damages will adequately punish UPMC. It is our belief that UPMC Shadyside's policies, culture, and lack of competent supervision resulted in the death [of the decedent].”
Plaintiff’s now seek a new trial because they had evidence to show that the decedent’s lost earning capacity was between $4 million and $15 million.
I wish Plaintiff’s medical malpractice lawyers all of the luck in the world as they continue their fight on behalf of the victim’s family. This appeal would not fly under Maryland medical malpractice law because of the wide discretion given to juries to determine damages. Still, it is hard to understand why the jury chose to disregard the judge's instructions and to disregard the overwhelming evidence with respect to lost earning capacity, particularly in light of how strongly they apparently believe in the hospital’s negligence.
Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi introduced a bill designed to encourage doctors and other medical professionals to volunteer their services to patients who cannot afford or access care. The law would provide grants that states would use in part to assume medical malpractice risk for doctors and ensure patients can recover damages from medical malpractice.
I have not thought through all of the ramifications of such a bill but it sure seems to make a lot of sense. What we also need to look at more creatively as a society is trying to get more doctors into rural areas. There have always been reports of doctor shortages in the more rural parts of Maryland.
The Baltimore Sun ran a story on Tuesday about the shortage of doctors in Maryland's rural areas.
The problem rural areas have is that doctors cannot earn what they can in more urban areas. Historically, MedChi, the Maryland state medical society, has tried to wrap all of these problems up and place them at the feet of Maryland medical malpractice lawyers causing their malpractice insurance rates to be too high.
This was always beyond silly because rural areas have so few successful medical malpractice claims in Maryland and malpractice rates reflect this fact. Thankfully, this Baltimore Sun article is void of any claims that the root of the problem is medical malpractice lawyers. I'm not sure if the MedChi has just dropped pushing that angle or whether the Baltimore Sun just tuned them out when the tried to blame malpractice lawyers. Either way, it is a welcome development.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-md.rural28jul28,0,7434366.story
Many doctors in South Florida are reportedly flying with a net: 21% of medical doctors do not have medical malpractice insurance.
I have never seen data in Maryland but I suspect the numbers are lower. My solution is simple: require all doctors practicing medicine in Maryland to have medical malpractice insurance. And while we are at it, all medical malpractice lawyers in Maryland should be required to have legal malpractice insurance as well, least we be accused of being hypocrites.
Medical Economics has an editorial from a medical malpractice defense lawyer who has defended physicians in malpractice cases for over 32 years. The author express the opinion that after having tried over 200 medical malpractice jury trials and won over 90 percent of those cases that if the same cases had been tried before health courts, the number of plaintiff's medical malpractice verdicts would have been much higher.
The idea behind health courts is that specially trained judges or a panel of medical doctors would hear medical malpractice cases without juries and decide liability and/or damages for the malpractice plaintiff.
This malpractice defense lawyer in this editorial praises the malpractice defense bar in Ohio for aggressively defending "questionable cases" as opposed to settling cases where there is only a small possibility of an adverse outcome and goes on to praise doctors for taking "time from their practices to participate in trials." (Actually, I'm not sure participation was optional but okay.)
The author concludes with a reference to that pesky little Seventh Amendment's right to a jury trial, a right that medical malpractice tort reform advocates don't mind turning away from to suit their purposes. Maybe James Madison and his colleagues were on to something when they decided that there was something important about a jury trial. Who knew?
Okay, so now medical malpractice lawyers on both sides believe that health courts do not make any sense. Which makes all the more puzzling the Maryland State Bar Association decision to have a discussion group - that was poorly attended I'm told - on health courts in Maryland. We tried health claims arbitration in Maryland. It failed miserably.
