| Oregon malpractice claims among nation's lowest | | Posted Monday, March 12, 2007 2:46:17 PM by Blog57 Team | | Medical malpractice claim payouts in Oregon are lower than those in all but seven other states despite the elimination of a cap on such awards in 1999, a new study shows. The study researchers tried to measure the effects of various malpractice changes and were surprised how little difference the changes made on the amount and frequency of malpractice awards. "With some of these types of laws, we were unable to see any effect," said lead researcher Teresa Waters, an associate professor at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. In Oregon the state Supreme Court revoked a cap on damages in 1999 for non-economic losses such as pain and suffering. Doctors and insurance companies spent $5.2 million in 2004 trying to reinstate a cap but voters rejected it.... | |
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| | | Malpractice insurance rates decrease for Ohio doctors | | Posted Thursday, November 09, 2006 10:46:12 PM by Blog57 Team | | COLUMBUS -- Four of the state's five largest medical malpractice insurers have revised their rates to produce an average decrease of almost 2 percent for Ohio doctors this year, following years of increases, the Department of Insurance said Wednesday. The 1.7 percent decrease in rates follows an average increase of 6.7 percent in 2005, and hikes of 20 percent in 2004 and 30 percent in each of the two previous years. "Stabilizing measures taken in the last few years by the Ohio Department of Insurance and the Ohio Legislature to reverse Ohio's medical liability insurance crisis continue to show positive results," Director Ann Womer Benjamin said in a release. "We are still closely monitoring the market and rates to ensure Ohio's health care delivery system remains functional." One of the insurers, Medical Protective Co., became the first in six years to lower rates when the department approved a 5 percent decrease in January.... | |
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| | | Medical malpractice rates to fall in the future years. | | Posted Monday, October 30, 2006 12:46:10 PM by Blog57 Team | | Just one year after signing a landmark medical malpractice reform legislation, Governor Rod Blagojevich and officials from Medical Protective, a Berkshire Hathaway company, today announced the company is reducing medical malpractice insurance premiums by 32-percent statewide. The Governor and company officals also announced the Medpro will significantly increase writing premiums in Illinois in 2007, in every area of the state. The dramatic rate reduction results from changes in underwriting practices made possible by the publication of rate data from industry peers, a key facet of the medical malpractice reform legislation signed by the Governor last year. The company's new rates and expanded market options will become effective for policies issued on or after January 1, 2007.... | |
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| | | State doles out malpractice insurance aid | | Posted Monday, October 23, 2006 10:45:48 PM by Blog57 Team | | Nearly 1,300 doctors and radiologists soon will receive checks ranging between nearly $6,000 and $18,000 to help them pay for their medical malpractice insurance under a state program aimed at keeping them working in New Jersey. The checks, which total $15.7 million, were mailed this week to neurosurgeons, obstetricians and diagnostic radiologists -- professionals who are most often the target of medical malpractice lawsuits, according to a statement released by state Banking and Insurance Commissioner Steven Goldman. The fund was set up under the Medical Care Access and Responsibility and Patients First Act, adopted two years ago to respond to soaring medical malpractice insurance rates that threatened to drive specialists out of the field. The money is collected through a $75 assessment on lawyers, doctors, other medical professionals and employers.... | |
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| | | Top U.S. medical insurer now in state | | Posted Sunday, October 15, 2006 10:45:53 AM by Blog57 Team | | In the same room where he signed a law last year restricting medical malpractice lawsuits, Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Friday returned to Alton to welcome the nation's largest medical insurer to Illinois. "We're not where we want to be, but we're making progress," Blagojevich said at a press conference at Alton Memorial Hospital. Medical Protective -- also known as Medpro -- will next year lower by at least 30 percent its premiums for doctors, hospitals and other medical providers, a spokesman said. The company also is trying to expand its client list in Illinois. Medpro's vice president of indirect sales, Mark Wittel, said Medpro has not aggressively sought Illinois clients in the past because of "the unpredictability of losses." Charges that courts in St.... | |
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| | | Medical malpractice insurer fined by state | | Posted Saturday, October 07, 2006 2:45:54 AM by Blog57 Team | | The state's largest medical malpractice insurer has been fined $450,000 by the state for "multiple violations of insurance laws and regulations that the company has since corrected," according to the state Office of the Insurance Commissioner. According to an agreement announced by Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, Physicians Insurance and its affiliates, Western Professional Insurance Co. and Northwest Dentists Insurance Co., won't have to pay $400,000 of the fine if the company doesn't have any more violations in the next two years. Physicians Insurance, according to Kreidler, covers 70 percent of the state's doctors. .... | |
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| | | Health Council examines no-fault insurance for medical errors | | Posted Thursday, September 28, 2006 6:45:37 PM by Blog57 Team | | FREDERICTON (CP) - Canadian health officials were urged Wednesday to adopt New Zealand's system of no-fault insurance for medical malpractice. Marie Bismark, a doctor and lawyer from the South Pacific country, told a meeting of the Health Council of Canada that Canadians would benefit from the system her country uses. "No-fault compensation benefits the patients because they can receive compensation for the harm they've suffered very quickly," she said. "It is needs-based and it also benefits the doctors because we don't have a system of individual blame or punishment. Compensation is provided regardless of whether the care was negligent or not." Canadian patients who suffer problems as the result of the health care they receive currently must file a malpractice lawsuit to seek compensation.... | |
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| | | Malpractice cap hasn't lowered premiums | | Posted Wednesday, September 20, 2006 2:45:56 AM by Blog57 Team | | It's been a little more than a year since the state cap on malpractice pay-outs took effect, but both supporters and opponents say it will be years before its impact is felt -- if ever. The law took effect in July 2005 and limits damages commonly known as pain and suffering to $350,000 per defendant and a total of $1.05 million if more than one provider is involved. It does not affect economic losses. Supporters of the caps say they are needed to reduce high jury awards and frivolous lawsuits, which they say led to soaring malpractice premiums that have been driving doctors out of the profession. Opponents say the premiums were so high to offset insurers' investment losses, artificially low premiums offered to attract business in the 1990s, and other industry factors. They also say caps hurt those who've suffered legitimate injuries.... | |
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| | | Find the Right Medical Malpractice Lawyer For Your Medical Lawsuit | | Posted Tuesday, September 12, 2006 8:45:36 AM by Blog57 Team | | Filing a medical malpractice claim is not an easy task. The lanes and by-lanes of the legal world at myriad and twisting and only an experience medical malpractice lawyer who is familiar with medical malpractice laws can really help you in obtaining a proper settlement. If you or one of your loved ones has suffered due to medical negligence, choosing the right medical malpractice attorney may be the most important decision you make towards getting a compensation for your suffering. The starting step is always the decision to pursue a medical malpractice claim and once that has been taken you need to start hunting for the proper legal representation. Law in itself is highly complicated, but medical law is even more so because of the way in which malpractice laws are pitted in favor of the medical providers.... | |
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| | | Healer or Dealer? | | Posted Saturday, September 02, 2006 6:45:54 PM by Blog57 Team | | "For services rendered" was the billing information my father gave Medicare when he did a hip replacement in the 1970s. He sent in what he considered a reasonable bill, and most of the time Medicare sent him a check. Those checks put me through college and medical school. My father was and still is every inch a doctor--an orthopedic surgeon, as I am--and laughs at the thought of himself as a businessman. He lost money in the market, in cattle and oil tax dodges, on boats and vacation homes; he lost money on many of his patients who never paid for their care. He made enough on the others to make up for it. I'm 48, among the last to have known that easy-billing heyday. But I'm not laughing. The financially carefree days when we could devote ourselves to medicine and nothing else came to an end about ten years ago.... | |
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