Searching For New York’s Medical Malpractice Crisis
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Remember the regular hand wringing about New York’s medical malpractice “crisis”? Doctors were said to be leaving the state in droves. OB/GYNs were dropping the OB. Neurosurgeons were retiring early. Hospitals and medical liability insurance companies in the state suggested they were close to bankruptcy…all because of the dreaded plaintiff’s lawyers and the “jackpot justice” they achieved for clients who were never really victims of medical negligence, but of unfortunate “complications” (such as operating on the wrong limb).
As it turns out, New York has been and remains a very physician-friendly state, and this has been reaffirmed by the latest news from Albany. After two years of medical liability insurance rates remaining frozen in place, the new rates just announced by the state’s insurance commissioner amount to a 5% increase for most physicians.
And yet, Superintendent of Insurance James Wrynn concludes his delivery of the good news with even more fear mongering. Yes, according to Mr. Wrynn, we are still in the midst of a “crisis” from which his leadership will extricate us (read to the end of the press release).
So, two years with no increases, followed by this year’s 5% increase, is indicative of a “crisis”? I’d like to suggest that the only “crisis” taking place in this subject area is the one that involves the credibility of our state’s insurance executives. It would be nice if that received some attention in the press.
3 Comments on this post
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throckmorton said:
I think that there is a big misconception that the med mal crisis is all about insurance rates. The big crisis is what has happened to the practice of medicine. No longer is it order the test that you need to make the diagnosis, it is order the tests that will keep you from getting sued. It is overtesting, over treating and “over-fear”. I am not in New York but have the job of reviewing applications for appointment for a major medical center. New York residency grads far exceed what would be expected from their number of programs.
A good metric to see what is going on is to look at the numbers of attorneys specializing in med mal. Is is decreasing, increasing or staying the same?
July 9th, 2010 at 5:39 am -
Andrew Barovick said:
I can’t quote any surveys, but based on anecdotal evidence gathered through conversations with other lawyers and local judges, fewer medical malpractice cases are being filed, and fewer lawyers are making it the centerpiece of their practices.
July 9th, 2010 at 1:53 pm -
throckmorton said:
For what its worth, I just got back from teaching a course at Mt. Sinai to their docs and docs from around the city. The number one topic of conversation at the meet and greet after the lecture series was if there were positions open in our area and how hard was it to relocate. The main reason to relocate was increased overhead of which medmal was part.
September 17th, 2010 at 4:18 am