Med-Mal Rates Down After Mich. Legal Change, Say MDs

"Michigan's carefully designed tort reforms do not deny a truly injured patient from just compensation," said Dr. Sophie Womack, a Detroit-based neonatalogist, president of the Wayne County Medical Society of Southeast Michigan and a member of the MSMS board of directors.

She said in a statement, "The reforms have helped reduce the 'lottery mentality' of each mal-occurrence, or bad outcome, from becoming a lawsuit."

Dr. Robert J. Jackson, a family physician in Allen Park and a member of the American Physicians Advisory Board, said that rates for family practices such as his will drop by 14 percent.

"Nothing in the overhead costs of my practice is going down, except, unbelievably, the cost of my malpractice insurance," he said. "If this isn't evidence that Michigan's tort reforms are working, I don't know what is," added Dr. Jackson.

According to Dr. Womack, every component of the state's tort reform laws have withstood legal challenges since they took effect in 1994.

"Over the past 13 years, the Michigan Supreme Court has supported the obvious intent of Michigan legislators to improve the medical liability climate in our state so that their constituents, our patients, will be able to have access to the physicians they want and need," she said.

Under the 1993 changes, the licensing fee that physicians pay to the state was tripled with the extra money provided to the state Attorney General's Office to conduct investigations of patient complaints against physicians.

Dr. Jackson noted that in the time since the reforms took effect, a movement has been underway to educate physicians and their practices about risk management, as well as initiatives focusing on patient safety and quality of care.

"The bottom line is that all of these efforts have improved patient access to health care by limiting the exposure to unjustified lawsuits. They also have improved the overall health care system," he said.

Jesse Green, a spokesman for the Michigan Association for Justice, a group representing trial lawyers, said the claims that the reductions in premiums are due to tort reform enacted over the past 13 years are misplaced.

In fact he said, premiums for medical malpractice coverage have risen steadily since the reforms were enacted, noting a study by the university of Michigan Health Center that found rates had increased by 18 percent just between 2004 and 2005. Wayne County has also been listed consistently among the areas with the highest premiums in the country for doctors, he added.

Additionally, Mr. Green said statistics have shown that payouts by malpractice insurers have fallen sharply, by as much as 75 percent. For proponents of tort reform laws to claim victory because of these rate decreases, he said, is akin to a "three card monte game" in which "they steal your watch and your wallet and then give you two bucks."

Since 1994, "doctors' insurance rates have continued to climb," he said. "Doctors have been gouged for years and years."

J. Robert Hunter, director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America, echoed the sentiment that tort reform advocates were giving credit where none was due.

"It's silly," he said. "A 1993 law and suddenly it's causing rates to drop when rates are falling everywhere?"

Statistics are showing that malpractice rates are decreasing virtually nationwide, Mr. Hunter noted.

"There's not tort reform everywhere," he said. "It's the cycle."