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Friday, December 30, 2005Data from the State Medical Board of Ohio don't support the notion that a large number of doctors fled the state in search of lower malpractice-insurance costs. In fact, for the fifth year in a row, the number of licensed doctors in Ohio remains virtually unchanged; in most of those years, there was a slight increase. As of July 2005 -- the most recent figure available -- 38,850 doctors were licensed to practice medicine in Ohio. That's slightly more than the 38,190 licensed in 2002, when doctors began lamenting the malpractice insurance crisis in rallies across the state. The next two years brought surveys predicting scary scenarios of doctor shortages. In one case, 34 percent of doctors surveyed by the Ohio State Medical Association said that they would close their practices within two years if rates continued increasing, while 58 percent said they'd quit within three years. A survey by the Ohio Department of Insurance reported that 40 percent of Ohio's doctors planned to retire in the next three years, even though only 9 percent of the respondents were older than 64. Lawyer alleges `scare tactic' That was April 2004, and the predictions don't appear to be coming true, said Steve Collier, a Toledo lawyer who sat on the Ohio Medical Malpractice Commission. No one, including Collier, doubts that doctors saw huge increases in their malpractice-insurance premiums between 2002 and 2004. There are confirmed accounts of doctors quitting their practice or no longer delivering babies because of escalating malpractice-insurance costs. But there has never been a sign that doctors are fleeing the state because of such costs. ``The claims were not true then, and they are not true now,'' Collier said. ``They knew it wasn't true. It was a scare tactic when they ran their (state) Supreme Court campaign (in 2004). It was a huge public relations campaign that was very successful for them.'' Let me just say, first of all, that I have not practiced medicine in the state of New York for fourteen years, but I have a medical license there. It's listed as inactive now, but I kept it active for at least a couple of renewal cycles. The number of medical licenses held in a state is not an indicator of the number of doctors practicing in the state. Doctors keep their licenses after they quit practicing - they never know when they might need it. It's true that the insurance premium increases have slowed down - and the article mentions that, to their credit. But that slow down (from increases of 20-30% from 2001 to 2004, down to 6.7% in 2005) is why the past year did not see an exodus of doctors. And one can make a persuasive argument that the slow down in rates was in part brought on by the activism of the medical profession. It wasn't a "scare tactic." If doctors had sat back and said nothing, there would have been no tort reform and no public awareness of the problem. Juries are made up of the public, and their awareness of the costs of careless litigation and careless awards can influence the the verdicts and the payouts. A lawyer for an auto-insurance company once told me that jury judgements are cyclical, too, depending on the mood of the country. We go through periods where juries want to sock it to corporations and insurance companies - when rewards are high and findings for the plaintiffs frequent. Then the pendulum swings as people realize that everyone ends up bearing the burden of runaway litigation, and findings for plaintiffs go down, as to the monetary rewards. I haven't fact-checked him, but he's a reliable source. There's more evidence that the malpractice environment is improving in Ohio - new companies are starting to come into the market in the state. Two years ago, malpractice carriers were only leaving - not coming. And although two of those companies told The Toledo Blade that tort reform had nothing to do with their decision to return, the Department of Insurance suspects otherwise: But Ms. Womer Benjamin said: "They weren't clamoring to come in before tort reform. I'm sure they've taken it into consideration. They know that Ohio has paid attention, that legislators are engaged in the problem, and that is encouraging." Truthfully, their arguments suggest tort reform did have an impact. They entered the market when premiums were at their highest and as payouts were decreasing. They're hoping to maximize their profits by avoiding all the losses the older, more established companies took before tort reform. But I digress. The malpractice crisis was real, it wasn't a scare tactic. And if rates had continued to increase at 30% a year, more doctors would have quit or moved. It's more than a little disingenous to look back at the tort reform campaign and say it was based on a lie just because it worked. But then, lawyers are good at being disingenous. posted by Sydney on 12/30/2005 07:50:00 AM 3 comments 3 Comments:
Aw. Could you say something about the writer who wrote the piece with which you disagree as being disingenuous, rather than a blanket statement? I know I'm a bit unusual, but I've got a joint degree in law and social work, worked at a children and family mental health agency for years and when I read assertions like yours about lawyers being good at being disingenuous, I just cringe. I believe that's how you feel. I believe that the medmal crisis existed. But the lawyers in that area have personalities unlike many other lawyers. And we all know that lawyers are paid to represent their clients as best they can. That that job sometimes make them seem disingenous stinks, but the blanket statement? Just doesn't seem warranted.
Shalom Sydney
After years of developing a fondness for the designation as a greedy trial lawyer I am now confronted with the new label, disingenous trial lawyer. It will be hard to merge the two traits. I suppose I could study the way doctors have done it over the years.
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