Medical Malpractice in Your State

limiting patients' rights does not improve care or lower insurance rates

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Maryland

According to the American Medical Association, Maryland is showing "problem signs" and on its way to becoming a "crisis" state.

Reality Check:

• The number of doctors has steadily increased since 1996.
  

Maryland already caps noneconomic damages.

Insurance Reform is Needed: Despite limits on patients' rights, Maryland insurers still raised premiums more than 42% in 2004 (see table). In fact, Maryland's largest malpractice insurer, Medical Mutual of Maryland, took in nearly double what it paid out in 2004, according to the company's annual statement. Med Mutual's investment gain of more than $49.3 million alone covered more than 83% of what it paid out in claims to victims of medical malpractice.

Although lawmakers limited the recovery of victims of medical malpractice a decade ago, today Maryland doctors' premiums averaged across the specialties are 28% higher than premiums in states without any caps, based on an analysis of data in the Medical Liability Monitor.

Medical Malpractice & Preventable Errors

Patient Safety Should Come First

Instead of limiting patients' rights, Congress should look to preventing insurance companies from price-gouging doctors and help implement processes that will put patient safety first. Fixing the system to put patient safety first will ultimately bring down costs for everyone. In Maryland alone, preventable medical errors in hospitals cost $320-$546 million a year, according to the consumer safety and health organization Public Citizen.

Nationally, medical errors are a real concern with USA Today reporting that medical errors seriously injure 1 in 10 hospitalized patients.

In fact, the Institute of Medicine reported as early as 1999 that medical errors are a national crisis. Yet, those same researchers recently noted that despite 5 years of calls to action, the medical community has made little progress in reducing the risk to patients who use the healthcare system. In particular, researcher Lucian Leape thinks that the medical community "has deflected attention from saving patients to saving money." read more...

A Washington Post investigation also revealed troubling facts about rampant problems with medical boards in the Washington-Metropolitan area, including:

• In Maryland, about 3 percent of the more than 10,800 complaints the state board received between 1999 and 2004 led to discipline against doctors, according to its records.
  
  
• Thousands of physicians in the area and across the nation have been given numerous chances to practice, despite evidence of well-documented drug and alcohol problems. With permission of state medical boards and hospitals, they have remained in business, even when many have relapsed multiple times and posed a danger to patients, medical board records show.
  
  
• 74 doctors in Maryland, the District, and Virginia were disciplined for substance abuse from 1999 through 2004. In five other cases, these state boards found that doctors violated the law by abusing drugs or alcohol but took no action. Of the 74 physicians, 53 percent have been disciplined more than once for alcohol or drug use during their medical careers. Nine were sanctioned at least three times by the same board. read more...

Faces of Medical Malpractice

Vernon Harris was so happy to finally be a father that when he adopted his baby boy, he became a "stay at home dad". Vernon loved to cook and at his son's first birthday, there is a video tape of Vernon in his apron cooking and celebrating. On the video of his second birthday, there is no Vernon at all. Vernon went to the doctor complaining of chest pain. He was misdiagnosed as having indigestion. In fact, he had a tear in his aorta, called an aortic dissection. Vernon was sent home and died the next day.

Source: American Association for Justice

Number of Personal Injury Lawsuits

There is no litigation explosion. The National Center for State Courts Recently reported that:

• Tort filings have declined by 5% since 1993. Contract filings, meanwhile, which are more likely to involve businesses than tort cases, rose by 21% over the same period.¹
  
  
• Automobile tort filings, which make up the majority of all tort claims, have fallen by 5% by 1993 and 14% since their high in 1996.¹
  
  
• Medical malpractice filings per 100,000 population have fallen 1% since 1998.²
  
  
• In 22 of the 30 states that NCSC examined population-adjusted tort findings declined from 1992 to 2001. The average change in tort filings across all 30 states was a 15% decrease.¹
  

Sources:

1. Examining the Work of State Courts, 2003, National Center for State Courts (NCSC) 2004
2. Medical Malpractice Filings per 100,000 Population in 11 and 17 States, 1993-2002, National Center for State Courts, 2004 (unpublished, on file with author)

Updated September 2005