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Wayne
County Med Mal Premiums Take Record Dip
By
PAUL NATINSKY
As
the Thanksgiving Holiday approaches, Wayne County physicians
will have one more thing about which to be thankful – lower
medical liability premiums from Michigan’s largest medical
liability insurer, American Physicians Assurance Corporation.
The
average rate reduction for Wayne County doctors, 13 percent,
is the highest single-year reduction in premiums since
medical liability reform was enacted in 1994, and is widely
viewed as evidence that tort reforms are working. Statewide
average reductions are 6.5 percent.
“Many
people, including some of our younger physicians, don’t
remember the bleak days of the ‘70s when commercial insurers
abandoned Michigan,” said WCMSSM President Sophie Womack,
MD. She said the Michigan State Medical Society had to
form it’s own mutual insurance company to help cover doctors
in the state – but it still wasn’t enough.
As
the epicenter of Michigan’s medical liability crisis, the
WCMSSM Board felt compelled to issue a resolution that
resulted in a massive physician march on Lansing’s Capitol
in 1985, resulting in some mild reforms in 1986, said Dr.
Womack. After seven more years of hard work, major reforms
were passed in 1993 and enacted in 1994 placing Michigan
at the forefront of medical liability reform nationally.
“Tort
reform is working; the number of frivolous cases is down,” said
Robert Jackson, MD, an Allen Park physician and member
of the American Physicians Advisory Board.
Dr.
Jackson, who has long been insured by American Physicians,
said premiums for family physicians, pediatricians, obstetricians
and internal medicine physicians have dropped 14 percent,
while high-risk specialties like neurosurgery and orthopedic
surgery have experienced 12 and 25 percent reduction, respectively.
Pulmonologist
Lonnie Joe, MD, of the Detroit Medical Society put recent
developments into perspective: “Tort reform is a mad dog
on a leash – and the news is that we have been able to
keep that dog on a leash for 12 years.”
Dr.
Joe took the opportunity to comment on the ongoing fragility
of the 1993 reforms. “We are probably one election from
tort reform going south on us,” he said. One Michigan Supreme
court justice change could tip the balance of the court
unfavorably toward upholding tort reform.
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