Interview with Mike Michael Kubik, vice president of marketing ProMutual Group, a Boston-based malpractice insurer that sells medical malpractice insurance throughout New England, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania to 18,000 doctors, clinics and hospitals.
Interview summary: these are good times for medical malpractice insurance companies in Pennsylvania.
The Illinois Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday from malpractice lawyers in three cases challenging the Illinois limit on caps in medical malpractice cases. Earlier this year, a trial court ruled that the law violates the separation clause of the Constitution. The Maryland Court of Appeals is also expected to soon hear arguments as to whether Maryland cap on non economic damages is valid under Maryland's constitution.
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Interesting blog post I found via KevinMD on the discussions between specialists and primary care doctors over the disparity in income between the two. Specialist make more money and they should is the gist of the post. But the disparity in income between specialist and primary care doctors is ridiculous, according to the author.
This CNN.com article is a little old, but it is an interesting story of one doctor's struggle to find a medical malpractice lawyer to bring a medical malpractice lawsuit against her doctor.
No one talks about this tragedy: victims who cannot bring a malpractice lawsuit only because the economics of medical malpractice cases do not allow lawyers to take cases where the injuries are not extreme.
The article includes a very poorly worded quote from medical malpractice lawyer: "What are her losses -- maybe $50,000? I can't afford to take a case that recovers $50,000. My expenses would likely be more than the recovery. She's out of luck." True statement, I guess. Awful way to put it.
In a series of articles, the Irish Independent underscores that the varying quality of radiologist in detecting breast cancer varies wildly for hospital to hospital is not a uniquely Maryland or American phenomenon. A radiologist investing what appears to be a breast cancer misdiagnosis epidemic in some hospitals in Ireland found after reviewing 3,000 mammograms that the breast cancer misdiagnosis rate at Portlaoise Hospital was six times higher than in the best hospitals in Ireland. Apparently, the breast cancer misdiagnosis rate at this hospital was 6% which is ridiculously high.
This underscores that how important it is to have radiologist reading mammograms that know how to and having equipment that gives you the best possible reading.
Maryland is not alone in seeing steep reductions in the premiums doctors pay for medical malpractice insurance. The Doctors Co., one of the medical malpractice insurance companies in the country, has filed with California state regulators to reduce malpractice premimus by an average 18.2%.
Doctors also seeks approval to increase its “claims-free” discount for California doctors from 12.5% to 17.5% for certain surgical specialties, including general surgery, neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery, thoracic/cardiovascular surgery and even plastic surgery.
The drum beat has already started for medical malpractice tort reform in West Virginia. The number of medical malpractice lawsuits filed in West Virginia is grew from130 in 2004 to 174 in 2007.
Ignoring the fact that with 75 medical malpractice lawsuits have been filed in West Virginia through July, the current pace is below 2003, there has to be some acknowledgment that there are highs and lows in the number of medical malpractice filings through mere happenstance. Of course, the West Virginia State Medical Association is already beating the drum beat that new action might need to protect doctors.
Underscoring how random malpractice lawsuit filings are as a predictor of trends, more than one-third of the malpractice lawsuits filed in West Virginia in 2008 were in July, which is usually a month with a relatively low number of lawsuits filed. Accordingly, this response from the West Virginia State Medical Association is – to be generous – reactionary.
This same thing happened in Maryland. A rash of medical malpractice settlement and verdicts in a single year - which could have been on purpose - led to a medical malpractice crisis that quickly revealed itself not to be crisis at all.
Click here for the AP article on this story.
I saw California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Meet the Press shortly after Tim Russert's death. I've never been huge fan but his moderate views and understanding of the complexity of the issues facing California were fairly impressive. (Was the bar set low?)
Anyway, the Terminator is on the wrong side of insurance reimbursements for doctors in California. His administration intends to appeal an appeals court ruling from last week halting a 10% reduction in Medi-Cal reimbursement rates to doctors.
I realize that we have a problem with this country with entitlements. But if you are of the mindset that we have to reduce entitlements, we have to do it head on as opposed to nickel and diming doctors.
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.
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.
