Liability risk is causing a shortage of ER docs in Florida. “. . . if your health-care emergency doesn’t qualify as trauma – as most do not – you might be better off in Broward, Miami-Dade or other counties that unlike Palm Beach have large public hospitals where emergency room doctors are more plentiful. Public hospitals typically offer doctors sovereign immunity from lawsuits, so they don’t have to worry about adding to their malpractice liability risk by treating emergency patients.

An increasing number of Palm Beach County doctors, including many who no longer have malpractice insurance coverage, are refusing to work in the emergency room or reducing the days they are willing to work there because they fear the added liability risk.”