Medical residents plan to leave Pennsylvania because of the lack of affordable malpractice coverage

One third of residents in their final or next-to-last year of residency planned to leave Pennsylvania because of the lack of availability of affordable malpractice coverage

“An environment of mounting liability costs in Pennsylvania appears to have dissuaded substantial numbers of residents in high-risk specialties from locating their clinical practices in the state. The impact of decreased resident retention on the future availability of specialist services in high-cost states merits close monitoring.” (via PointofLaw.com)

Comments

Anonymous
That’s actually surprising: only 1/3 ?
I’d have expected it to be at least 50%. Looks like they’re a substantial number of Penn docs in great need of the instinct for self-preservation.
Give it time.
Anonymous
Statewide mail surveys were completed in 2003 by 68 Pennsylvania residency program directors and 360 residents nearing the end of their training in anesthesiology, general surgery, emergency medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, orthopedics, and radiology residencies.
They didn’t ask neurosurgeons. Granted, that will work out to about 8 guys, but still.
Orac
I’m surprised it’s only 1/3 as well. Pennsylvania docs must have some strong ties to the state…
Elliott
There is a crisis and it is in doctor’s minds. I doubt a single one of them has priced medical malpractice. Doctors are really working themselves into a lather.
Anonymous
I think it is a distorted way to demonstrate the problem, unless you also understand that the premium rates quoted to recent graduates are not matured-in rates, so even the relatively discounted first year of practice rates might be off-putting.
A better analysis would be to compare how many of the residency graduates of three years ago elected to stay in-state after graduation against this year’s class.
-CHenry
Anonymous
“There is a crisis and it is in doctor’s minds. I doubt a single one of them has priced medical malpractice. Doctors are really working themselves into a lather.”
– Fortunately, biased idiots like Eliot can say whatever they want, but when docs are doing their talking with their feet, that’s a lot more persuasive an argument than whatever BS people like Elliot can come up with.
(thousands of docs fleeing the state)
Elliot: “There’s no problem at all– they’re all just imagining things. THEY WANT THAT THIRD LEXUS!”
(rolls eyes)
Anonymous
Elliot seems to be living in a fantasy land of his own making.
I have never been sued, and I dont doubt that many here havent either.
But that doesn’t mean anything, because all around us docs get hit like a bunch of hapless hobbits felled by monstrous orcs.
Every OB can expect to get sued an average of 2.6 times in their lifetimes. Similar numbers for neurosurgeons. The numbers for internists, general surgeons, neurologists, radiologists, pathologists, and anesthesiologists are lower, but except for anest and derm etc not by much.
That is not a crisis “in doctors minds”. Anyone who thinks so is a misinformed fool.
Elliott
Look, I’m an economist. Show me the bankrupt doctors and I will believe you. Show me the doctors leaving the industry and I will believe you (there is some evidence of this, but it’s anecdotal; also it tends more to support the thesis that the doctors are believing their own hype rather than the reality of actual harm to them). Show me worse health outcomes due to malpractice insurance (and not this stupid “defensive medicine” anecdotes). Show me the studies that show healtcare costs are being driven upwards by malpractice insurance due to the things doctors complain about (non-economic caps). Most of the studies point the other way for each of these markers I have laid out. If you give me cites of solid research and NOT surveys (which show what physicians think whether true or not) showing the opposite, then I will gladly dig up the cites that I am relying on to form my opinion.
It’s not there.
Instead, we have a crisis with real effects. Unfortunately, the crisis is mostly in physician’s minds.
Bob Vineyard, CLU
Elliot, those $100,000 med mal premiums are not just something the docs dreamed up.
That being said, tort reform is mostly smoke & mirrors. Placing caps on general damages will reduce overall claims but only by about 8%. What tort reform DOES do is reduce the number of claims.
When attorneys weigh the cost of filing med mal claims against a relatively small payout for ACTUAL damages, suits have a way of never making their way into the system. A claim for actual damages of $20,000 isn’t as attractive to a contingency based litigator as one with an additional $250,000 in general damages.
Curious JD
Not too many cases with $20K in actuals (economic) and $250K in general damages (noneconomic).
Anonymous
Well, with your calculations CJD, you could be right. Spin up a scenario of lost lifetime earnings and call them “economic damages” and get a sympathetic jury to buy it, and you won’t be stuck with your measly $20,000.
Anonymous
Show me the bankrupt doctors and I will believe you.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1058091
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/doctor/care/stats.html

Medical residents plan to leave Pennsylvania because of the lack of affordable malpractice coverage

Related Stories

More in Uncategorized

Comments

Site

Channels

Subscribe

Related Stories

More in Uncategorized

Comments

Site

Channels