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Saturday, February 26, 2005Gocio is believed to be the only practicing brain surgeon in Illinois south of Interstate 64. He is coming into a malpractice environment Maroney said still needs to be addressed at the state or national levels. Meanwhile, southern Florida is having an emergency medicine crisis, which experts fear is a harbringer of things to come for the rest of the country: Malpractice insurance premiums in Florida are some of the highest in the nation, according to the report. What's more, Medicare reimbursements to physicians and hospitals, which have universally been decried as too low, are a particular problem in this county with a significant number of people over age 65. All of this makes South Florida an unattractive place for new doctors to hang their shingles. More to the point, it makes the emergency room an unattractive place for local doctors to work. In fact, Florida had 32,683 licensed physicians last year, down from 50,003 in 1999, according to the state health department. But Palm Beach County's exploding population means it needs more doctors now more than ever. "This is a problem nationwide, and Palm Beach County is just on the cutting edge because of malpractice issues. So the rest of the country is about two years behind Palm Beach County," said David Butz, one of the report's authors. "Everybody is looking at the area." (emphasis mine) I keep hearing from opponents of tort reform that there really isn't a crisis. But if that's the case, where did those nearly 20,000 doctors in Florida go in just 6 years? posted by Sydney on 2/26/2005 08:42:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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