EXTRA EDITION November, 20, 2007

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Wayne County Med Mal Premiums Take Record Dip
 


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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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