Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Catching up....
This Washington Post article was reprinted in my local paper over the weekend:Dispelling Malpractice Myths:
It was nice to see this issue get attention in the Post. Hopefully as state legislatures begin to meet in January some serious reform, moving beyond damage caps, will be passed. |
This Washington Post article was reprinted in my local paper over the weekend:Dispelling Malpractice Myths:
Myth No. 1: The medical malpractice crisis is someone else's problem, not mine.Unfortunately the "limited extent allowed" is very limited indeed. A medical practice is one of the few businesses that cannot pass along its' increased costs to the consumer. Sometimes it takes drastic action such as what happened in West Virginia to bring this point home.
Premiums paid for malpractice insurance directly affect everyone's access to needed care and the cost of this care. Some excellent doctors are leaving practice in the face of unaffordable insurance premiums. Others are cutting back on the services they offer. To the limited extent allowed, doctors and hospitals pass increased malpractice insurance expenses on to patients and their health insurers.
If we don't fix the problems with the malpractice system, you may lose your doctor. You certainly will pay more for your care.
Myth No. 2: We need to preserve the current legal system to guarantee a fair hearing and provide compensation for patients harmed by the health care system.This is my biggest problem with the system, that a lay jury is asked to decide very complicated questions regarding medical liability and standards of care. They are asked to draw the line between negligence and an unexpected bad outcome. Very rarely does a "slam-dunk" case make it to a jury, those are most often settled out-of-court. The juries get the hard ones.
The medical justice system today is mostly random; it has become essentially a lottery. Hardly anyone seems to know this, although the facts are on the public record. A 1991 New England Journal of Medicine study found that nine out of 10 victims of disability-causing malpractice go uncompensated. That's right -- overwhelmingly, people harmed through medical mishaps are not compensated.
And a recent study by Harvard University researchers found that 80 percent of malpractice claims were filed against doctors who had made no error whatever. For instance, recent articles in scientific journals have documented that many, if not most, cases of birth-related cerebral palsy -- cases in which juries tend to be highly sympathetic to plaintiffs -- are not the result of malpractice by obstetricians. Juries often deliver sizable awards against providers who commit no errors for what are unfavorable, but random, outcomes of nature.
Myth No. 3: The malpractice system is necessary to punish and remove incompetent health care providers.The situation has gotten so bad that even medical staff officers are threatened with lawsuits for trying to separate the sheep from the goats. Outside review may be required but even that may not be the solution, since those organizations can be sued as well.
Unfortunately, the system that rarely provides just compensation for patients also perversely protects doctors who need to be removed from practice, by enabling them to sue other physicians who might step forward to question their competence. This undoubtedly has a chilling effect on whistle-blowing, and those who regulate doctors are often reluctant to suspend or revoke licenses without expert medical testimony.
Nor does the current liability system provide a way to make health care safer. Physicians, nurses and other professionals want to provide quality care, but they are human and make mistakes. What we need is a system that allows health care providers to work together to study errors and put practical improvements in place to prevent recurrences. The current system discourages doctors from talking about system failures for fear of being sued.
Myth No. 4: Malpractice costs are not a big deal -- they amount to less than 2 percent of total health care costs.The premium as percentage of income is the better measure here since the effect on the individual physician is what is driving the now and future access issues that are arising. I really don't' care about the percentage of total health costs the malpractice comprises. I care about how I'm going to pay my rent, staff, and salary after I write the check for my liability insurance, which has been called paying for the right to be sued.
The number sounds insignificant until you stop to consider that U.S. health care spending was a staggering $1.66 trillion in 2003 -- so we are talking of costs on the order of $16 billion to $32 billion.
In the case of Johns Hopkins Medicine, malpractice premiums as a percentage of physicians' total income have risen threefold over the past four years. In 2001 malpractice premiums were about 3 percent of total physician income at Johns Hopkins. They are nearly 10 percent today -- and growing.
The irrationality of our current medical justice system leads to the practice of "defensive medicine," in which doctors try to stave off lawsuits by ordering more tests than are medically necessary. Got a headache? You are as likely to get a CAT scan as a couple of aspirin. The added costs of defensive medicine are estimated at $50 billion to $100 billion per year.
Myth No. 5: The current malpractice insurance system is in crisis because insurance companies are trying to cover losses from unwise financial investments made during the dot-com boom.According to MAG Mutual's own figures the median awards are rising as well as the number of verdicts over $1 million.
Malpractice insurance rates are skyrocketing in large part because of the increasing size of malpractice awards. Nationally, median jury awards for medical malpractice doubled from 1995 to 2000, increasing from $500,000 to $1 million. Median out-of-court settlements also were up significantly during that time, rising 40 percent from $350,000 to $500,000.
Hospitals and doctors often settle cases out of court, even when they know they have done nothing wrong, because they fear putting their fate at the whim of unpredictable juries. Higher jury awards and settlements invariably mean higher malpractice insurance premiums and medical costs.
It was nice to see this issue get attention in the Post. Hopefully as state legislatures begin to meet in January some serious reform, moving beyond damage caps, will be passed. |
