Archives
December 2006
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Subject: Jennifer R. Root, MD
Time: 12:02:00 PM EST
Author: congdoc
Mood: Happy
Jennifer R. Root, MD
YPS Trustee
SCMA BOT
Fall 2006 report
To All SCMA Young Physician Section Members,
As always, your SCMA board has been hard at work tackling a great many issues
and there are several discussed at our last board meeting that I have
included in this report.
A representative of the JUA was present at our board meeting and passed along
several things. Fewer than ten lawsuits have been filed since the tort law
enacted July 2005 took effect, however most of these lawsuits covered
incidents that occurred before that date. It takes on average two years
between the incident and the lawsuit filing, so it won't be until next summer
that we will see lawsuits filed under the new rules. It was announced the
South Carolina Trial Lawyer association has already made moves to prepare to
challenge the constitutionality of this law by engaging constitutional law
experts outside the state. We will probably see something about this within
the next two years. The JUA is now providing a 'claims made' policy in
addition to there 'occurrence' based malpractice policy. For those who need
clarification, an occurrence based policy covers you if you had an active
policy at the time of the incident. Once you retire, or stop active practice
of medicine, even if you get sued several years down the road, as long as the
JUA policy was in effect at the time of incident, then you are covered. In a
claims made policy, you have to be covered by the policy not only at the time
of incident, but also at the time of filing of the lawsuit. When you leave a
claims made policy it is standard to purchase a 'tail' policy (prior acts
coverage)that covers any lawsuit that is filed after you stop paying
premiums. A claims made policy is cheaper for the first few years relative
to an occurrence based policy because the insurance company the first year
only has to cover you for the one year, i.e., the risk exposure is small so
the insurance is cheaper. After several years, however, the claims made
policy rates increase to equal those of occurrence based policies. Because
of physician request, a claims made policy has been created by the JUA. Also
, a new option with the JUA is a 'shared limit endorsement' for your group or
PA. What this means is that the policy will cover the individual and the
practice should the individual get sued. This also means that the practice
or PA would no longer have to carry a separate insurance policy. Presently
the PCF offers quarterly payments, and starting next spring or summer the JUA
will begin offering this as well. They wanted to do this sooner but because
of computer issues were unable to . And last, but not least, the JUA will
now offer free Office Risk Assessments for any practice covered by the JUA.
We all need to remember that the JUA is not a commercial interest that can
pick up and leave at any time, as commercial ones can and often do. If there
were no JUA, other commercial rates would increase drastically here in South
Carolina because the JUA is a low overhead provider that offers very
competitive rates requiring outside companies to lower their rates to
compete.
A legislative update was provided at the last board meeting, and after this
election cycle we have in the House 73 republicans and 51 democrats, and in
the senate 26 republicans and 20 democrats. So far, the Senate has prefiled
a few bills having to do with medicine, and the house will prefile in the
next few weeks. One bill in particular should be watched with interest is a
bill filed by Sen. Elliott, S19, the Charitable Healthcare Services Act,
which seeks to expand liability protection to health care providers that are
providing free care to patients. Others that to watch for include a rewrite
of the Physical therapy bill to allow physicians to employ PT's and the
Office based surgery regulations. Be sure and watch the alerts once the
Legislature has started in January for more information.
The SCMA board has chosen for its legislative platform this year to 'Get
Tough with TUFF '( tobacco user fee funds). We need to raise the price of
cigarettes to help decrease youth smoking, second hand smoke exposure, and
reduce smoking related illness in our state. We are asking that the funds
generated go to not only tobacco education and cessation programs, but
nursing scholarships, CHIPS program, and Medicaid. Be sure and contact your
legislators and tell them that you support the tobacco user fee. We also
need to send out a big congratulations to Dr. Kris Crawford of Florence, SC.,
a young physician recently elected to the SC Legislature. He has asked all
physicians to please contact him should they have any issues that they need
help with.
As always, please drop me a line if you have any questions or concerns .
roxane1@sc.rr.com
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Subject: Jennifer R. Root, MD
Time: 12:02:00 PM EST
Author: congdoc
Mood: Happy
Jennifer R. Root, MD
YPS Trustee
SCMA BOT
Fall 2006 report
To All SCMA Young Physician Section Members,
As always, your SCMA board has been hard at work tackling a great many issues
and there are several discussed at our last board meeting that I have
included in this report.
A representative of the JUA was present at our board meeting and passed along
several things. Fewer than ten lawsuits have been filed since the tort law
enacted July 2005 took effect, however most of these lawsuits covered
incidents that occurred before that date. It takes on average two years
between the incident and the lawsuit filing, so it won't be until next summer
that we will see lawsuits filed under the new rules. It was announced the
South Carolina Trial Lawyer association has already made moves to prepare to
challenge the constitutionality of this law by engaging constitutional law
experts outside the state. We will probably see something about this within
the next two years. The JUA is now providing a 'claims made' policy in
addition to there 'occurrence' based malpractice policy. For those who need
clarification, an occurrence based policy covers you if you had an active
policy at the time of the incident. Once you retire, or stop active practice
of medicine, even if you get sued several years down the road, as long as the
JUA policy was in effect at the time of incident, then you are covered. In a
claims made policy, you have to be covered by the policy not only at the time
of incident, but also at the time of filing of the lawsuit. When you leave a
claims made policy it is standard to purchase a 'tail' policy (prior acts
coverage)that covers any lawsuit that is filed after you stop paying
premiums. A claims made policy is cheaper for the first few years relative
to an occurrence based policy because the insurance company the first year
only has to cover you for the one year, i.e., the risk exposure is small so
the insurance is cheaper. After several years, however, the claims made
policy rates increase to equal those of occurrence based policies. Because
of physician request, a claims made policy has been created by the JUA. Also
, a new option with the JUA is a 'shared limit endorsement' for your group or
PA. What this means is that the policy will cover the individual and the
practice should the individual get sued. This also means that the practice
or PA would no longer have to carry a separate insurance policy. Presently
the PCF offers quarterly payments, and starting next spring or summer the JUA
will begin offering this as well. They wanted to do this sooner but because
of computer issues were unable to . And last, but not least, the JUA will
now offer free Office Risk Assessments for any practice covered by the JUA.
We all need to remember that the JUA is not a commercial interest that can
pick up and leave at any time, as commercial ones can and often do. If there
were no JUA, other commercial rates would increase drastically here in South
Carolina because the JUA is a low overhead provider that offers very
competitive rates requiring outside companies to lower their rates to
compete.
A legislative update was provided at the last board meeting, and after this
election cycle we have in the House 73 republicans and 51 democrats, and in
the senate 26 republicans and 20 democrats. So far, the Senate has prefiled
a few bills having to do with medicine, and the house will prefile in the
next few weeks. One bill in particular should be watched with interest is a
bill filed by Sen. Elliott, S19, the Charitable Healthcare Services Act,
which seeks to expand liability protection to health care providers that are
providing free care to patients. Others that to watch for include a rewrite
of the Physical therapy bill to allow physicians to employ PT's and the
Office based surgery regulations. Be sure and watch the alerts once the
Legislature has started in January for more information.
The SCMA board has chosen for its legislative platform this year to 'Get
Tough with TUFF '( tobacco user fee funds). We need to raise the price of
cigarettes to help decrease youth smoking, second hand smoke exposure, and
reduce smoking related illness in our state. We are asking that the funds
generated go to not only tobacco education and cessation programs, but
nursing scholarships, CHIPS program, and Medicaid. Be sure and contact your
legislators and tell them that you support the tobacco user fee. We also
need to send out a big congratulations to Dr. Kris Crawford of Florence, SC.,
a young physician recently elected to the SC Legislature. He has asked all
physicians to please contact him should they have any issues that they need
help with.
As always, please drop me a line if you have any questions or concerns .
roxane1@sc.rr.com
Written by congdoc Blog about this entry |
Add to del.icio.us | digg this
