Unable to obtain malpractice-suit reform in the face of the strength of the trial lawyer lobby in Harrisburg, organized Pennsylvania doctors agreed to a deal in which $440 million of state taxpayers’ money over two years would be used to subsidize their skyrocketing insurance bills (see Jul. 23). But there turns out to be a great big string attached: to get the subsidy, the doctors have to sign a pledge requiring them to go on practicing in the state of Pennsylvania. Some are calling it “indentured servitude”. (Michael Hinkelman, “Malpractice relief comes with conditions”, Philadelphia Daily News, Jan. 7).
Posts Tagged ‘medical’
Doctors on trial
In last week’s issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association ($ access), Baltimore physician David Merenstein writes about a malpractice case which resulted in a $1 million verdict against the residency program in which he was working (though he himself was let off the hook for liability) over his failure to insist on a PSA test in a middle-aged male later diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. Central to the plaintiff’s attorney’s strategy was to put on trial the mode of medical practice known as “evidence-based medicine”. Medical blogger Ross Silverman at “The Bloviator” (Jan. 8), who is often critical of attempts to limit malpractice litigation, nonetheless finds the result in this case “horrible” and “ridiculous”. MedRants (Jan. 8 and Jan. 9) comments, as does Medpundit Sydney Smith (Jan. 9). More: The LitiGator, from Michigan, also comments (Jan. 18)
In the same Jan. 9 post, Medpundit links to an illuminating Cleveland Plain Dealer piece (Harlan Spector, “Fleeing the malpractice crisis”, Jan. 4) about a neurologist who lost his malpractice insurance and moved out of Ohio after he was hit with six claims. Six claims sounds like a lot, and we keep hearing that “problem doctors” account for a large share of the malpractice problem; but how weak were the six claims? Well, four of the six were dismissed before he had to meet with a lawyer; in a fifth, which is pending, the plaintiff has no lawyer of record. And the sixth? That resulted in a defense verdict, and was called “frivolous” by the presiding judge, who however also said: “They paid these experts who sign affidavits, and I can’t throw the case out.” “I feel like I’m being shot at all the time,” said the defendant, Dr. Bruce Morgenstern, who moved to less litigious Colorado.
Texas lawyers raced to beat damages limit
Although Texas legislators and voters last year approved broad limits on medical malpractice lawsuits, the benefits may be slower to materialize than hoped. The medical liability insurance “market is still reeling from an avalanche of suits filed in anticipation that lawmakers would cap noneconomic damages. … The equivalent of four years of medical liability lawsuits were dumped on Harris County courts in the first nine months of [last] year — prior to the effective date of the medical liability limits. This pattern of flooding the courts was repeated statewide. All of the cases have to be defended, and all are governed under the old law, which imposes no cap.” (Bruce Ehni & Jon Opelt (Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse Houston), “Rush to courthouse delays benefits of Prop. 12”, Houston Chronicle, Dec. 30)
Newsweek responds to trial lawyers
In response to the fusillade of abuse it got from trial lawyers and their allies over its Dec. 15 cover story “Lawsuit Hell” (see Dec. 8, Dec. 12, Dec. 15), Newsweek has now published (Jan. 12 issue) a short editor’s note (reprinted at end of this post) standing by its reporting as “both accurate and fair”. (More later today on this.)
ATLA, Public Citizen et al. had complained loudly about how the magazine reported a jury award against Stanford University’s hospital as being $70 million while supposedly concealing from readers that the “present value” of this future stream of outlays was only $8 million. Newsweek’s editors respond effectively to this charge, but we will add one further point to what they say, namely that other major press outlets likewise reported the (accurate) $70 million figure at the time of the Stanford verdict. ATLA would have looked rather silly had it made clear that its complaint was about the magazine’s having followed the lead of the AP, the San Jose Mercury News, and the Recorder (PDF reprint) on this point. More: Lawyers’ Weekly USA now trumpets the Stanford case under the $71 million banner as one of its “Top Ten Jury Verdicts of 2003“.
Newsweek’s editorial note follows:
Medical Economics on fen-phen
Cover story explores the allegations against two cardiologists who assisted plaintiff’s firms in filing fen-phen cases (see Nov. 30, Sept. 25, Sept. 21), and includes responses/explanations from the doctors themselves. Also check out the sidebar item recounting the experience of a fen-phen user who got hustled through one law firm’s “hotel room echo” operation and was told she had serious heart damage, but had a devil of a time trying to extract details or a copy of the echo report from the lawyers’ cardiologist. Finally she consulted a different cardiologist who did an echocardiogram and told her not to worry, her heart was fine (Berkeley Rice, “Do these doctors give medicine a black eye?”, Medical Economics, Dec. 19) (via LitiGator)
NYT on Bronx courts
New York Times probes patronage-ridden Bronx courts: “Last summer, Justice Douglas E. McKeon, up for re-election to State Supreme Court in the Bronx, decided he needed to raise some campaign money. … fearing a tough fight, his campaign obtained a membership list from the state trial lawyers’ association and used it to send solicitations to Bronx and Manhattan trial lawyers. The lawyers donated by the dozens.
“Among the largest donors were law firms and lawyers who routinely file malpractice lawsuits against the city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs the public hospitals. The judge is the Bronx justice assigned to cases against the corporation, handling a lengthy list of malpractice suits charging that patients were neglected at Jacobi, Lincoln, North Central Bronx and other hospitals. …
“In all, the 150 or so donors to the McKeon committee have some 300 current cases before him, according to a comparison of the donor list and an electronic database of court records compiled by LexisNexis. Justice McKeon’s fund-raising strategy is common” both in the Bronx and in the rest of New York. Also many details on judges’ dispensing of lucrative guardianships to favored attorneys (see Nov. 11; Dec. 20, 2001) (Clifford J. Levy, Kevin Flynn, Leslie Eaton and Andy Newman, “A Bronx Judiciary Awash in Patronage, All Legal”, New York Times, Jan. 3)(see Dec. 20, 1999; May 1, 2000). The Bronx has the reputation of awarding the highest medical malpractice verdicts in the country.
Anthrax vaccination pseudoscience
Med-mal roundup
Lack of malpractice insurance is threatening to close the only obstetrics practice in Virginia’s rural and economically depressed Northern Neck region. The closure of Rappahannock General Hospital’s OB unit, which delivers about 250 babies a year, would be “absolutely devastating” to community health, says Albert C. Pollard Jr., who represents the region in the Virginia House of Delegates: “we’d lose a lot of babies if somebody has to drive to Richmond or Newport News.” (Frank Delano, “Crisis presses OB docs”, Fredericksburg (Va.) Free Lance-Star, Dec. 21). “While the governor and Legislature dither over fixing the state’s medical malpractice system, the [Philadelphia] region’s doctors have been voting with their feet,” reports the Philadelphia Daily News. “And they are choosing states that cap damages in malpractice lawsuits — or have other strong reforms to keep malpractice insurance premiums low.” (Michael Hinkelman, “Pa. docs are moving to ‘cap’ states”, Philadelphia Daily News, Dec. 8). Hard numbers on malpractice payouts are often in short supply, but the Missouri state department of insurance has some: it says insurance companies operating in the state “reported paying $135 million to cover 524 claims closed last year”. Self-insured entities, mostly hospitals, “reported paying $6.6 million to close 42 claims, but the actual number of claims and the amount paid may be understated in the data, department spokesman Randy McConnell said. … The average malpractice claim takes more than four years to reach resolution, so the 2002 claims data capture injuries sustained over a period of years. Only 15 of the 566 claims went to a court verdict.” Most of the paid cases involved claims that medical misadventure led to permanent injury or death. (Judith Vandewater, “566 medical malpractice claims were settled in Missouri in 2002”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dec. 4). The American Medical Association rates Missouri a “crisis” state. (M. Steele Brown, “Malpractice ‘crisis’ drives docs from Missouri”, Kansas City Business Journal, May 5).
Killer nurse: hospitals didn’t share records
“‘What I’m coming to understand is that, short of an actual conviction or revocation of a license, none of that information gets shared,’ said Dr. William Cors, chief medical officer at Somerset Medical Center in Somerville, N.J., where Mr. [Charles] Cullen last worked and where, prosecutors say, he may have killed 12 to 15 patients. ‘If anything good comes from this, it would be to reform the system where we’re prevented from telling one another what we know out of fear, quite frankly, of being sued.’ … Ms. Schantz, at St. Luke’s, said, ‘There is no record that anyone called here, ever, for any recommendation on him.’ And if someone had called? She said she was not sure what the hospital would have said. Hospitals are loath to say anything negative, she acknowledged, adding, ‘We’re a litigious society.'” (Richard P?rez-Pe?a, “Hospitals Didn’t Share Records of a Nurse Accused in Killings”, New York Times, Dec. 17). For more on reference liability, see Aug. 7; discussion of pilot and teacher cases from The Excuse Factory (link now dead). See also Mar. 23, 2000. More: Jan. 29, Mar. 3, Mar. 30.
Florida AARP supports liability cap
“In a reversal that has stunned the plaintiff bar, the Florida chapter of AARP, the powerful senior lobbying group, has declared its support of caps on pain and suffering damages in abuse and neglect lawsuits against Florida nursing homes.” In years past the retirees’ group has been an influential foe of limits on nursing home liability, but the state chapter reversed course and decided to strike a compromise with nursing home operators that would trade limits on pain-and-suffering liability in exchange for the industry’s agreement to accept new state rules, among them a requirement that facilities maintain assets so that successful litigants can recover liability verdicts. A lobbyist for the Florida chapter “said AARP changed its view after learning that many nursing homes were hiding their assets to avoid liability claims. In addition, many nursing homes have been carrying little or no liability coverage, despite the 2001 law’s requirement that all facilities carry coverage.” The group’s change in course is likely to draw fire from other elements within AARP that remain closely allied with the litigation lobby; it also was criticized by an official of the “Coalition to Protect Florida Elders, a nonprofit organization that is funded by trial lawyer Jim Wilkes.” More on Fla. nursing home suits: Mar. 13-14, 2001; Mar. 19, 2003; etc. (Julie Kay, “Unexpected Ally”, Miami Daily Business Review, Dec. 17).