Do you think that there is more of an issue with medical malpractice insurance than actual malpractice claims?

[danil70]

I think most of us agree that getting health care costs under control is getting malpractice insurance costs under control

Are doctors over a barrel with malpractice insurance like the rest of us are with Health insurance.

I have found this link to an article titled No Correlation between payouts and Insurance premiums concerning malpractice insurance.
http://www.atlanet.org/cps/rde/xchg/justice/hs.xsl/8689.htm

Why did I think the problem was claims? Was it just insurance company propoganda that I was hearing? What do you think?

[victorio83]

The American Trial Lawyers Association is not in favor of tort reform? Who knew?

It is revealing that they don't mention the hidden cost of defensive medicine.

The Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) provided a useful definition of defensive medicine in 1994.

“Defensive medicine occurs when doctors order tests, procedures, or visits, or avoid high-risk patients or procedures, primarily (but not necessarily or solely) to reduce their exposure to malpractice liability. When physicians do extra tests or procedures primarily to reduce malpractice liability, they are practicing positive defensive medicine. When they avoid certain patients or procedures, they are practicing negative defensive medicine.”

Fear of litigation has been cited as the driving force behind defensive medicine. Defensive medicine is especially common in the United States of America, with rates as high as 79% to 93%, particularly in emergency medicine, obstetrics, and other high-risk specialties....

[oded]

In the past few years, loss costs for med mal have been running around .70 - pretty darned good, largely due to tort reform in various states, AND, drastically increased premiums. Consider, though, that a decade ago, it wasn't unusual to see a 200% loss ratio, overall, for med mal coverage - and 150% was darned good.

Med mal IS like health insurance. Until the CLAIMS go down, the COSTS can't go down.

Want your health insurance premiums to go down? Everyone has to stop putting in so many claims.

[caomh]

The whole things is propaganda. Even though most of the country once agreed that slavery was good, it was wrong.

Malpractice insurance is a tiny percentage of overall medical spending. Getting it under control would not make a big difference in health care costs.

[dubh35]

the threat of a lawsuit has raised malpractice premiums through the roof. defending a suit with no merit is expensive.