• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Doctors' Insurance Bills on the Rise

Posted on: Wednesday, 11 May 2005, 21:00 CDT

May 11--Doctors expecting a break on their medical malpractice premiums, thanks to new caps on jury awards, will have to wait a while longer.

The state's two largest malpractice insurers, the Joint Underwriting Association and its partner, the Patients Compensation Fund, plan to boost malpractice rates by as much as 22 percent starting in July.

That rate increase for unlimited coverage comes on top of a 27 percent jump last year and similar increases in the last several years.

As a result, physicians practicing medicine in high-risk areas like neurosurgery will pay more than $75,000 a year.

The increase comes even though physicians won a hard-fought battle in the state Legislature this year to cap non-economic damages in malpractice suits at $350,000, or just over $1 million if there are multiple defendants.

The caps go into effect in July.

Fayrell Furr, a Myrtle Beach malpractice attorney, said doctors spent a lot to get a little.

"(Lawmakers) saved them 5 percent," he said, referring to the difference in the rate increase from last year. "And they (the doctors) spent probably $10 million in advertising and lobbying expenses" in pushing for the liability cap.

There is some good news for doctors. In recent years, insurers have begun offering coverage limited at $1 million for a single lawsuit and $3 million for a full year. The price of that coverage is going up just 8 percent, said Dan Brake, a North Charleston doctor who chairs the underwriting association's board.

Don Johnson, an orthopedic surgeon in Myrtle Beach who was instrumental in lobbying efforts for the caps, said limited coverage policies should be sufficient now that non-economic damages are capped."I know myself and most doctors in the state will buy the lesser policies," said Johnson, who chairs the Medical University of South Carolina's board of trustees. "We don't need to have an unlimited policy."

In any case, the rising rates do not reflect the slowdown in increases expected after caps were passed by the General Assembly and signed into law by Gov. Mark Sanford this spring, Brake said.

"It will probably take a year or two for the JUA and the PCF to see what impact, if any, the tort reform bill will have," Johnson said. "I wouldn't expect a change in the premium increase so soon. They just passed the bill a couple of months ago. That's too short a period of time."

The state created the association and the Patients Compensation Fund in the 1970s after an exodus of malpractice insurers left doctors without coverage. The association covers the first $200,000 to $600,000 of a doctor's liability. The fund covers the rest.

Different specialists pay different premiums based on their lawsuit risks. Rates for the different specialties weren't available Tuesday, but Brake said the increases are at the same level for all types of doctors.

That means that obstetricians, who pay among the highest rates of all specialties, will pay close to $60,000 on average next year for their malpractice insurance. In 1999, obstetricians paid less than $10,000. Neurosurgeons, who pay the very highest rates, will pay more than $76,000.

Brake said the new caps likely will bring other private malpractice insurers into the South Carolina market, which would boost competition and lower rates.

Gerald Wilson, a Columbia surgeon and president of the South Carolina Medical Association, said the doctors' goal was to control the rate of increase. He said doctors don't expect to see any decrease in premiums.

"I don't think that the passage of that bill is a solution to the problem," Wilson said. "It's an attempt to get control of the premium problem that we've had in this state."

But Furr, the attorney, doesn't believe the rates will be controlled at all, noting that any decrease in the rate of premium growth is due to better management by the insurers, which in the past were hammered in state audits for their poor management.

"Caps never have helped insurance rates and I don't think they ever will help insurance rates," Furr said. "Rates will only go down once doctors start regulating themselves, get rid of the doctors who cause most of the losses and start practicing better medicine."

-----

To see more of The Post and Courier, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.charleston.net.

Copyright (c) 2005, The Post and Courier, Charleston, S.C.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: The Post and Courier

More News in this Category