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.....Delaware County Daily Times
"Without malpractice reforms, docs will keep fleeing"

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

3...Pennsylvania Law Weekly  
Pennsylvania Medical Malpractice Measures Cut Med Mal Costs 5% to 8%: Study
4......Wall Street Journal
Tort Reform Saves Lives

1...Commentary

Several VERY interesting analyses, plus a wrongheaded assesment in a legal trade publication...enjoy!

DBR

2.....Delaware County Daily Times
"Without malpractice reforms, docs will keep fleeing"
by David A. McKeighan
10/10/05

((This is VERY well done - it wouldn't hurt if officials of medical societies, specialty societies and advocacy groups all over the state took Dave's example and sent the REAL data to local newspapers....I'm sure Dave wouldn't mind if people used this brilliant piece as a template for your own observations...))

A recent comment from a Sound Off caller asked for “someone to write a letter and put their name on it”. 

Here goes.   

I suspect that this caller is like manyother readers and can easily recognize “the spin” which personal injury lawyers have successfully put out to the public on the present situation with liability in Pennsylvania.   

I’m very certain that the personal injury lawyers will always send letters, write op-ed pieces and try to promote their messages under the guise of clever sounding consumer groups.  They blame greedy insurance companies, “bad doctors & hospitals”, the stock market, the vernal equinox………anyone they can for the current problems, or else try to deny the existence of problems at all.  They are successful in convincing a significant portion of our society that they are entitled to something-for-nothing and that for 40% of the action, they can get them big bucks. 

I hope the public will continue to see clearly and recognize that the personal injury lawyers have a lot to lose with common sense liability reforms which have been enacted in most other states.  We have made some significant progress in Pennsylvania over the past ten years but still have some missing components in an effective reform package. 

The lawsuit abuse crisis continues in Pennsylvania, despite the reforms.  According to the State Board of Medicine, 7295 Pennsylvania physicians were sued between May 22, 2002 and May 5, 2005.  That’s seven-a-day for seven-days-a-week, for just over 35 months or 25% of the actively practicing doctors in the state.  In the 66 days from March 1, 2005 to May 25, 2005 another 1100 physicians were sued.  This is seventeen per day for 66 days. 

((So it's getting worse, not better as some officials claim....perhaps they just don't understand that it's the NUMBER OF DOCTORS SUED which impacts both payouts and defense costs, NOT the number of lawsuits filed.  When, if ever, is a lawsuit filed which names ONLY ONE DOCTOR?  And when, if ever, is every doctor named in the initial suit found "guilty" of negligence or malpractice?  Everyone knows that the majority of physicians named in a suit will be dropped somewhere along the way - but in the course of eliminating everyone who happened to be in the zip code the day of an alleged injury, thousands of dollars are wasted in defending doctors who didn't do anything wrong and should have been named in the suit atall.....an average of $25,000 each, to be exact, for a case which doesn't go to court....let's see, if we don't count that 6-8% of the 7,295 doctors sued between May 22, 2002 and May 5, 2005 will end up in court, and we multiply $25,000 times 7,295 doctors sued....that's $182, 375,000 - or more than 182 MILLION dollars)). 

As a part of the reforms which have been passed in Harrisburg, the State Board of Medicine now must conduct its own investigation into every allegation of medical malpractice.  As of May 5, 2005 the Board conducted the mandatory investigation into 4086 cases and found a “rule to show cause’ in eleven of the cases.  The other 4074 were dismissed without cause.

The Board also notes that in: 

fiscal year 2002 -03,  2800 physicians were sued for malpractice in Pennsylvania;

fiscal year 2003 -04,  2100 physicians  were sued for malpractice in Pennsylvania;

fiscal year 2004 -05,  3016 physicians were sued for malpractice in Pennsylvania. 

Perhaps the PA Supreme Court’s press release from April 11, 2005 was erroneous in suggesting that the number of lawsuits in Pennsylvania was decreasing.  ((Or perhaps it ignored the vital distinction between lawsuits filed and number of doctors sued....))

Between 2000 and the end of 2004, Pennsylvania insurers paid out $201,000,000,000 (that’s 2.01 billion) in medical malpractice claims.  Then in 2004 they paid out another $448,000,000, a 13.5% jump from the $394,500,000 reported in 2003.  At a 33% - 40% contingency fee, the lawyers’ payday was at least $670,000,000. ((Nice payday....))

Dr. William Sage, who chairs the Pew Charitable Trust’s Project on Medical Liability in Pennsylvania, recently commented that our liability system is broken; it “fails to adequately compensate injured patients, pits doctors against patients and causes errors to be hidden rather than studied to improve medical care.”  As a society we are presently diverting billions of dollars from patient care to a system that has no accountability to improving patient care.  

((And the following information appeared in the July 2, 2005 Liability Update:  States that have capped malpractice lawsuit awards have seen a larger growth in the number of practicing physicians than those States without such caps, according to a new study from HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The other new study conducted by The Project on Medical Liability in Pennsylvania showed that states with legal system reforms such as limits on non-economic damage awards saw a higher increase in the number of physicians.  According to the study, doctors did not retire as early in states with reforms.  And, those states were more attractive to new doctors.))

In a recent press release from State Representative Curt Schroder (R – Chester County), the question is appropriately framed:  “Is our health care dollar better spent on patient care or lawsuits?”  Representative Schroder quotes local orthopaedic surgeon, Dr. Chip Hummer in saying, “patients deserve more than just a promise that they can sue; they deserve high-quality specialty care”. 

People across Pennsylvania are beginning to wake up and notice that their access to care is eroding.  Despite how the personal injury lawyers try to portray the number of doctors in Pennsylvania, there are many statistics that even the most seasoned litigators cannot dispute.  

We train thousands of young physicians in Pennsylvania and then export most of them to other states (see #1 attached).  Less than 4% of the physicians in Pennsylvania are under thirty-five years of age (see #2).  This is a number that is significantly down in the past fifteen years.  The national norm is between 12% and 14%.  Looking ahead, we’re on a collision course with our aging population over the access to quality medical care.

As our elected officials kick-off their fall calendar in Harrisburg and Washington DC, the medical community is once again poised to support the remainder of the much-needed reform package.  We recognize that these reforms will be very difficult to accomplish but assert that without these changes, perhaps patients should start planning to accompany their physicians as they move out of the state.   

We appreciate the support of our community and pledge to do everything we can to keep as many physicians as possible here in Pennsylvania.  Please contact your elected officials and ask them to help us stop the lawsuit abuse. 

David A. McKeighan is Executive Director of the Delaware County Medical Society in Media

((These are some of the scariest numbers I've seen about the future of health care in Pennsylvania: 

Synopsis of Graph 1, Percent of Residents in Training Who Stay in Pennsylvania to Practice - Source: AMA (2005), referenced in story above displays the following downward trend - In 1994, 50.5% of residents stayed in PA to practice, dropping to 40.5% in 1996 and rising slightly to 44.8% in 1997. Then in 1998, it dropped to 17.7%, rising to 29.9% in 2001, when it began a steady decline until the present.  From 24.1% in 2002, resident retention dropped to 17% in 2003, and to an all-time low of 8% in 2004. 

Another attached graph, Graph 2 referenced above, Percent of Permanent Pennsylvania Physicians Under 35 - Source: AMA (2005): demonstrates why retention of residents is important - in 1991, 11.8% of physicians in the state were under the age of 35.  That figure dropped steadily to a low of 5% in 1999, when it began to rise slightly and reached 6.2% in 2001.  Then another steady deline began, to 4.6% in 2002, 4.1% in 2004, and finally, to another all-time low of 3.4% in 2004.))

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