The AMA’s ad is full of overblown hyperbole – the organization asserts that America’s medical liability system is “broken,” and contains much discussion of “frivolous” lawsuits.  Naturally, the AMA asserts that these lawsuits are responsible for rising healthcare costs.  As we have previously discussed, such claims are not only unfounded, they are directly contradicted by the actual evidence.

Perhaps that is why the AMA felt the need to invent statistics in support of its claims.

For example, the AMA’s add claims that 64 percent of medical liability claims in 2009 were dropped, withdrawn or dismissed, using this statistic to assert that the majority of medical malpractice lawsuits are “frivolous.”

But this analysis is flawed on many fronts.  Most notably, it confuses the term “claim” with an actual lawsuit.  A claim includes any demand made to an insurer for benefits under a policy. Thus, the 64 percent of “claims” which were dropped have nothing to do with medical malpractice, but with liability for payment of medical expenses – a very different form of medical liability.

When actual medical malpractice lawsuits are considered, a very different picture emerges.  In fact, between 1999 and 2008, medical malpractice lawsuits in the United States dropped by 15 percent, a significant reduction indeed.

Likewise, the AMA’s ad asserts that physician defendants won 88 percent of medical liability claims which went to trial in 2009. Again, the AMA argues that this proves that the vast majority of medical malpractice claims are “frivolous.”  That claim is completely unfounded.

In fact, only 3 percent of patents injured by medical negligence file a lawsuit at all.  This is in large part because so many instances of medical negligence are completely clear cut, and fall into oft-repeating patterns (infections from improper sanitization when inserting a catheter, for instance). Insurance companies settle the bulk of these claims, which then never reach trial at all.  This is not just rhetoric – no less than researchers at Harvard University have found that the refusal to pay well-founded malpractice claims is a far bigger problem than so-called “frivolous” claims.

The AMA’s financial “facts” are no better.  In the add, the Association asserts that H.R. 5 is necessary because many doctors pay $150,000 annually to insure against medical malpractice claims. Even were this figure accurate (it is not, and indeed, malpractice premiums have been lower each year since 2006), that has nothing to do with H.R. 5′s proposed draconian caps on damages payable to victims.

You see, as our personal injury attorneys have previously noted, there is already much real data on what happens when damages caps are put in place, as various states – including Illinois – have been experimenting with these caps for years.  What has occurred?  Damage caps do nothing to lower malpractice insurance premiums.  States without damages caps actually have lower insurance premiums, on average.

So why is the AMA so keen to support H.R. 5?  Because the bill would limit the liability of its members, pure and simple.  With H.R. 5′s nationwide damages cap in place, doctors who commit malpractice, and the companies who insure them, would face substantially reduced liability.  This would come at the expense of victims, who would be prevented from recovering for the harm done to them, and the public, who would be serviced by doctors with reduced incentive to work hard to ensure patient safety.

We urge our readers and our representatives to oppose this dangerous and ill-conceived legislation.  All our lives could depend upon it.

For a free consultation with a top-rated medical malpractice lawyer at Passen Law Group, call us at (312) 527-4500.

If, as expected, Governor Pat Quinn signs the bill into law in June, it will provide a major step forward for patients looking to protect themselves from dangerous doctors. In a climate where scores of patients are injured or killed each day by the very professionals who they pay to safeguard their health, accurate information about a doctor’s background is an invaluable asset – and an absolute necessity.

Under the Patients’ Right to Know Act, patients will be able to access physicians’ histories online, as part of a database on all Illinois doctors. The database will allow patients to check whether a doctor has been convicted of a crime, fired, or made a payment due to medical malpractice (whether due to a judgment or a settlement) in the past five years.

This legislation has been in the works for more than ten years, but has been repeatedly scuttled by lobbyists for physicians, and the insurance companies, including the Illinois State Medical Society.  But State Representative Mary Flowers, a democrat from Chicago, persevered, and made sure the legislation was delayed, but not buried.

The bill finally passed after recent public outcry over physicians convicted of sex offenses, even sex crimes against patients, who are permitted to continue practicing. Our medical malpractice attorneys were among those who pressured our legislature to take action on this dangerous situation.

Once the bill becomes law, the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation will compile the data, and post it on the Department’s website, idfpr.com.  The Department will then update and maintain the database.

In fact, the Department has previously compiled all this information. The profiles were posted for nearly a year beginning in 2005. Unfortunately, the profiles were originally posted thanks to an amendment to the law capping medical malpractice awards in Illinois. Due to the way in which the law was written, when the Illinois Supreme Court courageously struck down the damages cap, the profiles perished, as well.

This removed the information from public accessibility. This was a travesty, and certainly not unnoticed by the public. In fact, during the year the profiles were posted, they drew over 130,000 clicks per week, proving that the public knows just how important this information is to public health and safety.

Unfortunately, the old 2005 information is now virtually obsolete. Once the bill becomes law, the Department has stated that it will take months to assemble the information for posting, as it requires data from courts, hospitals, insurance companies, and other sources.

Although we are disappointed by the likely delay, we understand that assembling the information will take time. We are eager to see the complete and accurate profiles become accessible as soon as the department is able.

Indeed, we have only one real concern about the physician profiles going live.  Many commentators have suggested that making malpractice settlements public will discourage settlements, as physicians strive to protect their practices from the consequences of public settlement. On the whole, however, we believe that the benefits to the public from these public profiles is worth the risk.  If this problem should manifest itself, then we, as a better informed public, can face it together.

For a free consultation with an experienced Chicago medical malpractice attorney at Passen Law Group, call us at (312) 527-4500.

Now, a report issued by the Inspector General of the federal Department of Health and Human Services illustrates exactly how bad the problem has become.  The report took data from late 2008 and fully analyzed the records to determine exactly what had occurred.  What was uncovered shows that Medicare patients must gamble with their lives and health in order to receive hospital care.

In fact, a shocking one in seven medicare patients who undergoes treatment at a hospital suffers harm from that same hospital, whether in the form of infection, medical error, injury from neglect (such as bedsores), or negative reactions to drug interactions or known or unknown drug allergies.  This means that each month in America, around 134,000 Medicare patients suffer adverse consequences from a hospital stay.  Even more shockingly, the report estimates that nearly half of these injuries – forty-four percent – were demonstrably preventable.

Of the Medicare patients who were harmed during their hospital stay, 1.5 percent died as a result of that hospital-inflicted harm.  Although that percentage may seem small, that impression is deceptive.  That 1.5 percent represents 15,000 medicare recipients who are losing their lives each month.  Our top medical malpractice lawyers are  angered by these unnecessary deaths.

The problem is certainly not limited to Medicare recipients.  Indeed, ten years ago the Institute of Medicine warned that nearly 100,000 people die each year from medical mistakes.  As the figures from the new medicare report illustrate, this figure has skyrocketed over the past decade.  And Medicare recipients are particularly vulnerable:  these individuals tend to have the least access to high-quality healthcare, and the least ability to affirmatively “shop” hospitals and choose the facility at which they will receive care.

It is more than time for our society to step up and confront this shocking situation.  There is no excuse for allowing tens of thousands of our fellow Americans to endure the consequences of hospital negligence, up to and including pain, sickness, disability and death.  It is especially inexcusable when the most vulnerable among us are exposed to this negligence.

Our nation’s bureaucrats, lawmakers and regulators have – simply put – failed to protect us from the hospitals that are supposed to cure us.  The only means that remains to reign in these for-profit medical monsters is through litigation.  Only when the victims of medical malpractice, and the family members they leave behind, step up and take action against these hospitals and doctors will we ever really see change.  These institutions cannot be made to change by appealing to their hearts:  we must appeal to their pocketbooks.  If you or someone you love has suffered an adverse event while hospitalized, we encourage you to seek out an experienced medical malpractice attorney and explore your options.

For a free consultation with an experienced Chicago personal injury lawyer at Passen Law Group, call us at (312) 527-4500.