Rate of Med-Mal Suits Down, With or Without “Reform”

Tort reform is a critical issue for people with asbestos-related disease, such as mesothelioma, who often need damages to care for themselves and their families. Tort reformers claim out-of-control personal injury litigation is hurting the nation’s economy and driving up health care costs. However, time after time these claims fall apart when closely investigated.

One of the strongest arguments for reforming “tort” law is that personal injury suits hurt business, including the medical business. “Tort reformers” like to point to reduced rates of med-mal suits in “reformed” states as proof of their argument. Fewer lawsuits mean lower health care costs, they gush, in spite of the fact that there’s no evidence health care costs in any “reformed” state have actually been lowered.

Now an article in the Des Moines Register documents that the rate of malpractice suits is down everywhere, not just in “tort reformed” states. However, it’s not clear why that’s true.

In “Malpractice cases drop, but views on why differ,” Tony Leys writes that one reason fewer malpractice cases are being filed is that it has become more expensive to press lawsuits. It’s often the case that, even when there is strong evidence of malpractice, the cost of the suit might not cover the amount of damages a plaintiff would probably receive, and this is true even where damages are not capped.

But this brings state “tort reform” laws into further question. Whether you agreed with the law or not, at least states could document a real result — a lowered rate of personal injury suits. Now it seems that reduction might have happened anyway.

Iowa has never placed any limits on the awards a plaintiff might receive. Yet in Iowa malpractice suits dropped by 49 percent from 2002 to 2009. Some states that have reformed tort law have seen bigger reductions, but in other “reformed” states the rate of reduction is about the same as Iowa’s.

Iowa doctors still claim they practice “defensive medicine,” over-prescribing expensive tests and procedures, because they fear lawsuits. But “reformed” states with more dramatic reductions in malpractice rate don’t show any measurable difference in the amounts of tests and procedures ordered, either.

A number of studies have shown that a small percentage of “bad apple” physicians are responsible for a majority of the nation’s malpractice suits. The organization Public Citizen has found …

• Since 1991, 5.9 percent of doctors have been responsible for 57.8 percent of malpractice claim payments.
• Only 1.1 percent of doctors were responsible for 20.2 percent of all payments.
• 82 percent of doctors have never had to pay a malpractice claim.

One wonders if some culture of fear has infested the nation’s physicians and made them more frightened of malpractice suits than the reality says they should be.

— Barbara O’Brien

This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 1:16 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.