Health Coalition on Liability and Access

THE PROBLEM: More and more Americans cannot get the health care they need when they need it.

Patient Access to Care At Risk Due to Medical Lawsuit Abuse

Sky-high liability costs have caused highly trained specialists, such as neurosurgeons and orthopaedic surgeons, to cut back or stop on-call services to hospital emergency departments, greatly reducing patients’ access to vital emergency surgery services. (June 2006 Institute of Medicine report, “The Future of Emergency Care in the United States Health System”)

In the summer of 2004, Elsie Bishop was driving through New Mexico, when she experienced extreme nausea. She was rushed to a hospital in Santa Fe, where a brain scan revealed that Bishop was suffering from a bleeding aneurysm. After hours of trying to locate an on-call neurosurgeon, the hospital finally found one in Albuquerque, more than 60 miles away, and arranged a helicopter transport. By then, it was too late. She died days later. (U.S. News & World Report, “Get Me a Neurosurgeon, Stat!”)

Fifty-two percent of the hospitals in litigation-friendly states say they have lost doctors due to the effects of rising liability costs. (American Hospital Association 2005 Survey)

Lawsuits Hinder Access to Care

Nearly eight in ten Americans (78%) fear their access to affordable, high-quality health care is threatened because medical liability costs are forcing doctors out of medicine. (Harris Interactive Poll, 2006)

Doctors Abandoning High-Risk Procedures

Twenty-seven percent of physicians surveyed by the American Medical Association in 2004 said they had cut back on their services, and almost all of them (96 percent) cited medical liability concerns as a key part of that decision.

One-third of physicians said they had chosen not to go into particular specialties due to fears that they would be exposed to higher liability risks. (March 2003 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report, “Addressing the new Health Care Crisis: Reforming the Medical Litigation System to Improve the Quality of Health Care”)

Women Suffering Most

Due to the high risk of liability claims, one in seven women has stopped practicing obstetrics, according to one recent survey. Twenty-five percent have limited the amount of high-risk obstetric care the are willing to offer, 12 percent have limited the number of babies they deliver, and 5 percent have stopped performing major gynecological surgery altogether. (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Medical Liability Survey 2004)

THE CAUSE: Medical lawsuit abuse has turned our legal system into a lawsuit lottery, where a few of us win and the rest of us lose.

Out-of-Control Litigation

According to the American Medical Association, seventeen states and the District of Columbia are in “crisis” or are facing serious problems. (AMA, America’s Medical Liability Crisis: A National Review)

And it is no wonder why: About one-third of U.S. orthopaedists, obstetricians, trauma surgeons, emergency room doctors and plastic surgeons can expect to be sued in a given year. (Archives of Internal Medicine, “Defending the Practice of Medicine” by Richard E. Anderson, M.D., June 2004) Yet most of these suits without merit. In 2004, for example, more than seven out of ten medical liability claims resulted in no payment to the plaintiffs and only 1.1 percent of claims resulted in a plaintiff’s verdict. (Physicians Insurance Association of America Data Sharing Project, April 2004)

Mega-Verdicts Rising

Million-dollar verdicts are standard today, with 52 percent of all awards topping $1 million and the average award coming in at a whopping $4.7 million. (Jury Verdict Research: Verdicts, Settlements and Statistical Analysis, Brook J. Doran, ed., 2005)

Today’s System Designed for Lawyers, Not Patients

Plaintiffs in medical liability cases receive less than 28 cents out of every dollar spent on the medical liability system. The lion’s share of awards and settlements is pocketed by personal injury lawyers and covers administrative fees. (The Heritage Foundation, Backgrounder No. 1908, January 17, 2006)

Medical Liability Premiums Have Skyrocketed

Over the past decade, physicians have faced substantial increases in medical liability insurance premiums. According to one index, real rates increased by 71 percent from 1991 to 2003. (“The Determinants of the Cost of Medical Liability Insurance,” Daniel P. Kessler, 2006) And though premiums in some states are leveling off, the rates have stabilized at near record-level highs. (Amy Sorrell, Liability Insurance Rates Mostly Hold Steady or Drop This Year, American Medical News, December 11, 2006).

A National Problem Requiring a Federal Solution

Medical liability insurers no longer limit their services to a single state, patients must now travel across state lines to find the medical care they need, and opponents of liability reform have managed to stifle or even overturn meaningful attempts at reform at the state level. It’s time for Congress to take action.

The BOTTOM LINE. America’s medical liability system is broken. It’s a dangerous equation. Medical Lawsuit Abuse + Skyrocketing Insurance for Doctors = Less Care for Patients