Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report Examines Developments Related to Malpractice in Three States

Main Category: Litigation / Medical Malpractice
Article Date: 18 Sep 2005 - 0:00 PDT

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Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report highlights recent developments related to medical malpractice in three states. Summaries appear below.

• Connecticut: Connecticut Medical Insurance, a physician-owned malpractice insurer that covers about 2,300 physicians in the state, on Tuesday announced plans to maintain current premium rates next year, the Hartford Courant reports. "CMIC will not be raising rates in 2006 because the losses and premiums have been brought back into balance. However, the underlying reasons for the increased losses and premiums have not changed," according to CMIC CEO Denise Funk. Physicians with no malpractice losses who have received malpractice insurance from CMIC for at least five years will receive premium rate credits of between 7.5% and 25%, the company said (Kalra, Hartford Courant, 9/14).
  


• Maryland: The state Office of the Attorney General last week in a letter to the Maryland Insurance Administration said that, although a "literal reading" of a recently passed law mandates that the state no longer subsidize malpractice insurance costs for physicians if premiums do not increase, the "legislative intent was to continue payments," the Washington Post reports. Officials for the Medical Mutual Liability Insurance Society of Maryland have announced that they will not increase malpractice insurance premiums this year, and the state insurance administration had questioned whether the law will allow the subsidies to physicians to continue (Washington Post, 9/9)
  


• Washington state: No evidence exists that "lawsuits or the legal system have caused Washington's doctors' medical malpractice insurance rates to increase," according to a report released on Sept. 7 by Public Citizen, the Tacoma News Tribune reports (Otto, Tacoma News Tribune, 9/8). State residents this fall will vote on two ballot measures related to medical liability reform. Initiative 330, sponsored by the health care industry, would cap noneconomic damages in most malpractice lawsuits at $350,000, impose time limits on when plaintiffs can file lawsuits, cap attorney fees and authorize mandatory arbitration. Initiative 336, supported by trial attorneys, would allow the state to revoke the license of physicians for three malpractice claims, establish a supplementary malpractice insurance program to cover additional liability, regulate malpractice insurance premium rate increases and limit the number of witnesses in a malpractice lawsuit (Galloway, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 9/8). According to the Public Citizen report, which used data from the National Practitioner Database, malpractice lawsuits have not caused physicians to leave the state or a large increase in malpractice payouts. The report found that malpractice payouts in the state have decreased by 24% since 1991 and that the total value of payouts decreased by 42.2% to $29.3 million between 2001 and 2004. In addition, the report found that 85% of malpractice payouts are awarded to seriously injured patients or the families of patients killed by medical errors. The Washington State Medical Association, which questioned the report, said, "Doctors on the ground in Washington paint a drastically different picture than the image the study pieces together" (Tacoma News Tribune, 9/8).

"Reprinted with permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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