A Toxic Battle Over Medical Malpractice Lawsuits
According to the June 14, 2004 issue of USA Today in a Cover story by Laura Parker entitled "Medical Malpractice Battle Gets Personal", the battle over medical malpractice lawsuits has become toxic. Some doctors are refusing medical treatment to lawyers, their families and their employees except in emergencies. And, some professional medical societies are trying to silence their peers by discouraging doctors from testifying as expert witnesses on behalf of plaintiffs.
" Doctors and lawyers long have been at odds over malpractice litigation. But soaring malpractice-insurance premiums, which hit doctors in high-risk specialties such as neurosurgery and obstetrics particularly hard, have fueled the debate. For doctors who blame the increases in their premiums on unwarranted lawsuits and large jury awards, the solution is clear: Overhaul the nation's civil-litigation system, starting with what juries can award in damages.
Malpractice lawyers, led by the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, counter that rising premiums have more to do with the insurance injury than jury awards. They say tighter regulation of the industry is needed. The lawyers say that stifling malpractice litigation could deny Americans some of their rights to seek redress in court when doctors make mistakes.
The AMA is backing federal legislation that would cap pain-and-suffering awards against obstetricians and emergency-room doctors at $250,000. The bill, resubmitted by President Bush this year, is again stalled in the U.S. Senate where it died in 2003. Meanwhile, the battles continue in state legislatures. All but nine states have restricted medical-malpractice lawsuits in recent years. But the AMA contends that only six states have passed "effective" legislation, meaning laws that cap money awards."
The following link to a map published in the May 15, 2004 issue of Internal Medicine News shows which states had limits on noneconomic damages for medical malpractice in 2003. In New England, only Massachusetts and Maine currently cap noneconomic damages, but only Texas and Colorado have capped both noneconomic (pain and suffering) and total (punitive) damages.
On the AMA home page (http://www.ama-assn.org)in the "Spotlight on Issues" section, clicking on the "Medical Liability Reform is AMAs No. 1 Legislative Priority" link leads to another page containing the link below entitled; "Medical Liability Reform--Now!".
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/7861.html
Published on June 14, 2004, this provides "a compendium of facts supporting medical liability reform and debunking arguments against reform". (It is a 63 page, 610KB PDF file which requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to be downloaded).
" Doctors and lawyers long have been at odds over malpractice litigation. But soaring malpractice-insurance premiums, which hit doctors in high-risk specialties such as neurosurgery and obstetrics particularly hard, have fueled the debate. For doctors who blame the increases in their premiums on unwarranted lawsuits and large jury awards, the solution is clear: Overhaul the nation's civil-litigation system, starting with what juries can award in damages.
Malpractice lawyers, led by the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, counter that rising premiums have more to do with the insurance injury than jury awards. They say tighter regulation of the industry is needed. The lawyers say that stifling malpractice litigation could deny Americans some of their rights to seek redress in court when doctors make mistakes.
The AMA is backing federal legislation that would cap pain-and-suffering awards against obstetricians and emergency-room doctors at $250,000. The bill, resubmitted by President Bush this year, is again stalled in the U.S. Senate where it died in 2003. Meanwhile, the battles continue in state legislatures. All but nine states have restricted medical-malpractice lawsuits in recent years. But the AMA contends that only six states have passed "effective" legislation, meaning laws that cap money awards."
The following link to a map published in the May 15, 2004 issue of Internal Medicine News shows which states had limits on noneconomic damages for medical malpractice in 2003. In New England, only Massachusetts and Maine currently cap noneconomic damages, but only Texas and Colorado have capped both noneconomic (pain and suffering) and total (punitive) damages.
On the AMA home page (http://www.ama-assn.org)in the "Spotlight on Issues" section, clicking on the "Medical Liability Reform is AMAs No. 1 Legislative Priority" link leads to another page containing the link below entitled; "Medical Liability Reform--Now!".
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/7861.html
Published on June 14, 2004, this provides "a compendium of facts supporting medical liability reform and debunking arguments against reform". (It is a 63 page, 610KB PDF file which requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to be downloaded).
posted by Bob Coli, MD at 3:49 PM
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