Only a matter of time before it affects every single one of you:
Tamer Seckin, who had spent 20 years working as an obstetrician-gynecologist in Brooklyn, was faced with the prospect of a 14 percent hike in his malpractice-insurance rate, so he decided four months ago to stop delivering high-risk babies.“Just today, I had to tell a woman I’d been treating for years that when she goes into the delivery room, I won’t be there,” said Seckin, who is the chief of gynecology at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center.
“This is what I’m trained for, but I can’t afford to do it anymore.”
And he’s not alone.
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{ 25 comments }
Thank goodness single payer is coming and will relieve you guys of this burden.
OH, you mean single payer LEGAL services? Wherein legal representation is a RIGHT, on demand, for free, and/or flat fee’d at Medicaid rates??
A friend’s father stopped delivering all together b/c of his insurance costs.
Whats the damn problem? Just let the midwives do home births on everybody.
Way too many c-sections in this country anyways.
“Thank goodness single payer is coming and will relieve you guys of this burden.”
How is that going to solve the problem? Nurse midwives already have legal authority to deliver any baby that an ob/gyn can, they just cant do c-sections.
Is single payer going to change the rules to let nurse techs or RNs deliver babies? I dont think the nurse midwives will let that happen.
maybe the janitor can deliver some babies too. that’d save some money.
anon 1:59
What are you talking about? Single payer can’t force a doctor to deliver a high risk baby. And malpractice rates aren’t going anywhere with single payer but up.
Doubtful. There will be a workers comp style no fault system.
Even without it, why would rates go up? Because your insurer told you so? One of the main incentives for a patient to pursue a med mal case, the medical expenses, will be gone.
Think man, think.
medical expenses???
No, medical expenses don’t drive the crazy multi million dollar awards John Edwards got. Its those secondary damages that get you. And thats the bread and butter of many of our future and present leaders, so if you think thats suddenly going away, then you haven’t been thinking enough.
“Think, man, think.”
Um, yeah, they would be paying those medical expenses out of pocket, right? And that’s what they’ll be suing for? Don’t think so…
They always say that medical expenses are the motivator of malpractice suits. Yet tort reform proposals seek to limit non-economic damages, never economic damages, which are not limited.
Why does the tort bar howl when there is a proposal to limit noneconomic damages?
There’s an article in today’s WSJ about problems in the market for lawyers. The big firms offer STARTING salaries of $160K, but that’s to the top schools and top students of secondary programs. The rest bottom-feed. The article described one lawyer making fifty grand for a personal injury firm. Another described making 30 grand at a personal injury firm, then went to another firm, did even worse. I believe the quote was “I never thought I would consider it a good day when a crackhead comes in with five hundred bucks”.
Let’s face it, the biggest motivator for malpractice suits is a lawyer who thinks he can make a jackpot.
Yet another puff piece. The journalism schools must be pumping out the daft in a manner akin to the ghetto/trailer park assault uteri pumping out the products of conception. The main thing lacking in that vast majority of these stories, that in turn make them puff pieces, is the after-expense compensation rate of the provider making the complaints. Knowing such a figure would allow the objective reader to determine if the complaints have merit or if it is yet another attempt at extorting special privileges from the patient population.
Anon 12:18 –
Your comment is absolutely irrelavant. If in fact the doctor is doing less deliveries, his after-expense compensation is irrelevant.
Why? Because if his bottome line were improved by doing deliveries, he would do them. If his bottom line sufffers for doing them (because the differential in insurance premiums FOR DOING THIS PROCEDURE exceed the potential increase in reimbursement) he will not do them.
Here is a question for you: Are you satisfied with your income? Good. Now, for the same work you will make less, or you can do LESS work, and make about the same (because your expenses just went down). Which would YOU pick?
Why do you nelieve that there is an obligation for phsyicians to do additional work that is NET uncompensated?
“Why does the tort bar howl when there is a proposal to limit noneconomic damages?”
Because it makes the cases of children and stay at home mothers and the elderly worthless.
“Let’s face it, the biggest motivator for malpractice suits is a lawyer who thinks he can make a jackpot.”
No more so than the reason people go to medical school is because of the incredibly high pay relative to other professions.
“I believe the quote was “I never thought I would consider it a good day when a crackhead comes in with five hundred bucks”.”
It’s hard for people who get paid by the government and insurance companies to comprehend the value of a dollar, i guess. If you physicians had the courage to go to the free market, when that same crackhead comes in with a broken arm, you’ll be happy to have his $500.
Anonymous : 6:07 AM
After expense compensation is particularly relevant when it comes to puff pieces like the one in question. How much sympathy would the plebeians have knowing that the provider was still making a good $150 to $200 K after all expenses and the rationale for stopping service (unless more funds could be extorted or more rights could be given up) was not one of doing no harm… except to his own pocketbook? If the providers want to be “speical” and “do no harm” then they should be held to a standard commensurate with their privileges. If not, then we can start dismantling the provider first system that has been put into place since the time of Flexner.
>>Because it makes the cases of children and stay at home mothers and the elderly worthless.
Economic damages aren’t worthless. The cost of that mother’s work as a mother, done by someone else, is not worthless.
I’m sorry you think it is. I think it’s worth something, and a good lawyer should be able to secure that in court.
If that does not turn into a multimillion dollar jackpot for the next John Edwards, I do not shed a tear.
You’ll have to settle for five hundred bucks from the next crackhead. I love that quote.
“Economic damages aren’t worthless. The cost of that mother’s work as a mother, done by someone else, is not worthless.”
How much is it? And the elderly? And children?
You say it’s worth something, but your lawyer is sure going to try and knock that value down, isn’t he? And you’ll be there with your insurer cheering that devaluing on, won’t you? You’ve already made their lifetime of pain and suffering only worth what the average surgeon makes in a year.
Tell the kid with the horrific injury you caused what a jackpot he’s won!
How about a system in which the patient decides if they want insurance for a bad outcome. I visualize someone in south Florida going to an OB doctor who goes bare. Maybe they fly down from New York because they can’t get a doc there. The get two fees quoted to them. One with and one without outcome insurance. For that extra Florida cheesy touch, maybe the insurance company could put a little machine in the waiting rooms where you just put you credit card in and buy the insurance.
I went parasailing in Florida and had to sign an ironclad liability waiver. Does that mean I have no compensation if injured or crippled? Not at all, I have already purchased my own life, medical, and disability insurance. The only thing I have no insurance for is non-economic damages.
“I went parasailing in Florida and had to sign an ironclad liability waiver.”
Completely unenforceable, but designed to make you think it is. I’m glad you have disability insurance. Hope you’ve read your policy, because there’s a lot of people with disability insurance having to file suit to get that coverage.
I don’t need to tell the injured party about the jackpot because the injured party is not getting the jackpot.
The lawyer is the one who gets the jackpot.
Limiting contingency fees is part of tort reform, after which, you are more interested in the crackhead with the five hundred bucks.
I agree, let’s limit what the plaintiffs can pay their lawyer, IF we limit what the defendant’s insurers can pay theirs.
Weird how doctors don’t like the govt. setting what they get paid, but want everyone else to be subject to it.
The lawyer gets a “jackpot”? I guess if you have no idea how much work and financial risk goes into a med mal case it can seem that way. Kinda like many people think physicians get paid way too much but they don’t realize how much time goes into becoming a physician.
Interesting how you don’t like it when people criticize you when they lack knowledge on the subject, but you feel free to do it regularly, eh?
>>I guess if you have no idea how much work and financial risk goes into a med mal case it can seem that way.
I would imagine it takes a lot of money to bribe the judge.
http://www.abajournal.com/news/big_name_pi_lawyer_sentenced_for_bribing_judges
There is the risk you might get caught lying and cheating on your way to the jackpot.
Obviously, one lawyer is indicative of the whole bunch. Just like that physician in Boston who was caught operating drunk and high is indicative of all physicians. Right?
From the article:
“….Lawyer Paul Minor was sentenced to serve 11 years in prison and ordered to pay a $2.75 million fine and $1.5 million in restitution, the Sun Herald reports. Minor earns as much as $2.5 million a year from a tobacco settlement. He also made big money handling asbestos, medical malpractice and car safety cases, the Associated Press reports.
Prosecutors had contended Minor bribed former judges John Whitfield and Wes Teel to obtain favorable results in cases…..”
Asbestos, med mal, and car safety. Going for the jackpot. I wonder if he helped put the bombs on the fuel tanks for that TV new show?
….U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate of Jackson, Miss., said the wrongdoing had put an end to the defendants’ “upward spiraling” careers. “Lady Justice is sobbing,” he said. “You essentially put justice up for sale.”…..
Gee, ya think?
But it’s those 99% of lying, cheating, bribing lawyers who give the 1% of honest lawyers a bad name.
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