LIABILITY UPDATE by Donna Baver Rovito

by Donna Baver Rovito, Editor, "Liability Update"
Author, "Pennsylvania's Disappearing Doctors"

This LIABILITY UPDATE "newsletter" is a free service which I provide, as a volunteer, to help provide medical liability reform and crisis information to physicians, patients and physician advocates.  I do not work for any physician advocacy organization.

Opinions and clarifications are my own, and do NOT reflect the official position of any physician or patient advocacy organization unless stated as such.  Opinions are placed in double parentheses ((xxxxxx)), italicized and appear in blue. 

This Update is emailed to approximately 7,500 health professionals and physician and patient advocates.

PLEASE FORWARD THIS IMPORTANT INFORMATION TO EVERY HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONAL YOU KNOW AND SEND ME MORE EMAIL ADDRESSES

1...Commentary
2.....AMA E-Voice
Are you treating Hurricane Katrina evacuees?
3....Insurance Journal
Actuaries Say Med-Mal Report Misled the Public 

((Items 4-8 are in Parts 2 and 3))

4.....New York Sun
Clinton, Obama Ally on Medical Errors
5.....BCBS HealthIssues.com
Rodham Clinton, Obama Propose Disclosure Program
6...The Citizens Voice
Case spotlights medical malpractice issue
7....The Citizens Voice
Quinn critical of alleged document-altering, Mercy's attorney
8...Sent to the Wilkes-Barre Citizens Voice


1...Commentary

Stories about physicians NOT returning to the damaged Gulf Coast are drawing attention to the long and short term effects of physician loss.  Here are some very astute comments from one of our readers - who also happens to be a surgeon who left Pennsylvania to escape high medical liability premiums....

"On the Gulf coast we potentially have a model for what happens to a community or state when physicians leave in large numbers.  You don't have to be able to see around corners to realize that the same mismatch between need and available services that is occurring on the Gulf  could just as easily happen in the Northeast.  The upshot is - physicians ARE a rare commodity (if you want to take the business approach to it).  They are NOT easily replaced, and they move only in response to economic measures that make it more advantageous for them to leave or enter an area.   When the supply is gone, not only do you have to entice new people to enter with an economic package that is BETTER than what they currently have (for example directed at physicians in Iraq or Haiti), but you have also to compensate them for the disruption that a move causes to family (i.e., pain and suffering).  We will see if there is a move to attract physicians from overseas to fill the gap......J. Norris Childs, MD"


2.....AMA E-Voice

1) Are you treating Hurricane Katrina evacuees?

If you are a licensed physician treating evacuees of Hurricane Katrina, www.katrinahealth.org may help you access some patients' prescription drug information other health data electronically.

To complete the process necessary to obtain a login and password, please contact the AMA's Unified Service Center at (800) 262-3211, which is available 24 hours a day. Physicians will be asked specific questions to verify their identity and that they hold a current unrestricted license to practice medicine in at least one state.

Access the AMA's comprehensive Web pages on hurricane relief


2) AMA testifies on Medicare payment reform

AMA Trustee John H. Armstrong, MD, testified Sept. 29 to a U.S. House subcommittee about ways to enhance proposed legislation to prevent Medicare physician payment cuts.

Learn more about today's testimony

Have you contacted your members of Congress to support the bills to stop the cuts?

Learn more and contact them


3....Insurance Journal
Actuaries Say Med-Mal Report Misled the Public 
September 27, 2005

((We've known this since the report was released, of course, but it's nice to have independent confirmation....there's a particularly good analysis by James Copland at PointofLaw.com at this address:  http://www.pointoflaw.com/archives/001292.php#1292))

Independent actuaries with the firm Towers Perrin say that a July 2005 report released by the Center for Justice and Democracy and five other "consumer groups" is incomplete and unsound.  ((I love that they correctly used quotation marks around "consumer groups," since the groups which contracted this report have affiliations with groups that oppose liability reform and their own unique agendas...see Items 8 and 9 for additional information about trial lawyer-affiliates which represent themselves as "consumer" groups....))

Jay Angoff, an attorney employed by a personal injury law firm, performed the analysis for the six "consumer groups" and claimed that medical liability insurers have overcharged doctors and hospitals and accumulated record amounts of surplus over the last three years.

However, an analysis of Angoff's report by actuaries James Hurley and Gail Tverberg reportedly finds that those claims are not supported by the data, nor do they pass a common sense test.

Towers Perrin's comments released Tuesday say Angoff's "analysis is incomplete and unsound" and his statistics "are:

1) meaningless and unsound in the case of paid loss to written premium comparisons;

2) materially incomplete, in the case of incurred loss to earned premium comparisons; or

3) incomplete and taken out of context, in the case of the change in surplus."

The Towers Perrin analysis documents that malpractice insurers have lost money in each of the years 1999 through 2003 even after considering investment income from their bond portfolios. In 2001, financial results were the worst in approximately 30 years. Hurley and Tverberg, through a succinct and thorough review, reportedly show that Angoff's conclusions cannot be supported by the facts.

Furthermore, Hurley and Tverberg say that Angoff's analysis fails the common sense test in that insurance regulators and analysts do not look at the statistics that Angoff derives because they are "meaningless, incomplete and inappropriate to form the conclusions made in the [Angoff] Report. If medical malpractice is as profitable as implied by the report, more companies would be competing to write the coverage."

PIAA President Larry Smarr applauded the actuaries' comments, stating, "The Angoff report is a hoax and inappropriately twists numbers to claim that medical malpractice insurers have increased premiums at a rate more than 20 times the increase in claims payments. Towers Perrin has taken a critical step toward setting the record straight and stopping Angoff and these groups from further misleading the public."

((Sadly, no matter how much proof is offered that Angoff's report is bogus, the trial bar and others who oppose liability reform will continue to quote it - just as they have the IOM numbers and false data from Public Citizen....while physicians and their advocates continue to point to evidence and hard data - they're scientists, after all - the trial bar and their front groups don't let facts get in the way of their agenda....))

Angoff's report is entitled, "Falling Claims and Rising Premiums in the Medical Malpractice Industry."

The PIAA is an association of doctor/provider owned and/or operated medical liability insurance companies which insure more than 60 percent of America's private practicing physicians as well as dentists, hospitals, and other healthcare providers. ((Gee, look, they're not trying to conceal who they are....))

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