Medical Malpractice Premiums And The Damned Lawyers

Turns out, again, it ain't the lawyers doing it. In fact, it may be the result of the insurance companies' losses in the bond markets from 1998 to 2001. Though we're sure they'd tell you that if it were the case. The Washington Monthly (06.01.05):

"Just in case you haven't gotten the message yet, here's another study of medical malpractice that comes to the same conclusion as practically every other study done in the past couple of years: the medical malpractice 'crisis' is mostly an invention of insurance companies and their friends in Congress.

The basic numbers are pretty simple: the number of total judgments per physician has gone gradually down, while the total value of payouts has gone gradually up. However, the increase has been small, and matches the overall growth in medical costs."

Malpractice Again And Again And Again

Mr. Drum notes that based on the figures, "malpractice payouts have grown at about the same rate as medical costs in general. In 1992, malpractice payouts amounted to about 0.3% of total healthcare spending and 1.2% of physician and clinical spending. In 2002, the numbers were....0.3% and 1.2%."

Which sounds pretty much the same to us.

Mr. Drum also comments that "before anyone asks, these figures are for both court judgments and out-of-court settlements. The data comes from reporting of malpractice payments to the National Practitioner Data Bank, which has been required by federal law since 1990. It includes everything."

You think it might be the medical malpractice insurance companies? LATimes (06.01.05):

"There may be a medical malpractice crisis, but studies released Tuesday suggested that jackpot jury awards were not the cause.

Many doctors blame such judgments for skyrocketing insurance premiums. But the average malpractice claim payout rose about 4% a year from 1991 to 2003, according to a study published online by the academic journal Health Affairs."

Malpractice Payouts Have Not Soared, Reports Say

Hell, from 2000 to 2003, the claim payout "slowed to less than 2% a year...according to the study of 184,506 claim payments reported to a national databank."

Uhhh, that's a lot of claim payments to survey, isn't it.

"Physicians and insurers may fear multimillion-dollar jury awards, but the average court judgment in 2003 was $461,000, said Amitabh Chandra, a Dartmouth College economist and one of the authors." How many were settled out of court? How about 96%, for an average settlement amount of $257,000.

"The researchers concluded that malpractice payments had risen in line with medical care costs, while doctors' insurance premiums grew far faster — by double-digit percentages for some specialties. They suggest that recent malpractice premium increases may have had more to do with insurers' documented losses in the bond market from 1998 to 2001."

On another note, have you had your annual physical yet?