If I was an editor of a newspaper, I would ban all editorials that just complain of a problem without offer anything resembling a solution.  This editorial in the Denver Post is classic.  Just babbling on about the problem, pretending to focus on patients, without offering anything resembling a solution.   We need to compensate victims but a fault based system is a bad idea?  The cost of compensating everyone who suffers a medical injury would be insane.  Justice requires effort.  Sorry. Trite platitudes about how the battles over caps are a waste of energy add nothing to the conversation.  You have a plan you can defend?  Articulate it.  Otherwise, save the solution-free speeches. 

Maryland doctors have largely have two targets: Maryland medical malpractice lawyers and insurance companies.  With respect to the latter, it made a small step forward last week when the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission came to a compromise with hospital representatives and insurers on the rates Maryland hospitals can charge to patients Wednesday by approving a 1.77% increase.  

Earlier this week, hospital representatives, insurers and state officials agreed on a rate increase of 2.12 percent, but the commission decided to drop the rate to a 1.77 percent increase. The Maryland Hospital Association initially asked for an increase of 3.8 percent.   

You would think 1.77 percent is no big deal.  But it will bring in an additional $230 million for Maryland hospitals.

Ed McMahon from Tonight Show fame, settled his medical malpractice lawsuit against a Los Angeles hospital after breaking his neck, one of his malpractice lawyers told reporters. McMahon sued the hospital claiming that doctors failed to diagnose his broken neck after a fall and discharged him without taking an X-ray. He also accused the hospital of botching two subsequent spine operations.

Any malpractice lawyer will tell you these are tough claims.  You need to know the facts of any lawsuit before rendering an opinion - all of the facts.  But having said that, celebrities are able to find lawyers to file lawsuits that no one else would consider touching with a ten foot pole.  

A jury in Philadelphia awarded the widow of a man who allegedly died as the result a doctor's failure to read an x-ray because he had a corporate meeting was awarded $2.185 million in a malpractice suit against St. Joseph's Hospital and that doctor and another emergency room doctor. 

The emergency room doctor had appropriate ordered several lab tests, including X-rays and echocardiograms, but it took almost two hours for some of the tests to be performed, said one of Plaintiff's medical malpractice lawyers.  Worse still, after the x-rays and other tests were prepared and completed, the emergency-room doctors never reviewed them before they were sent to radiology, a practice required by hospital procedure.  The man died that night from a dissecting aortic aneurysm. X-rays that hat would have revealed this condition weren't "interpreted" until the next day when it was too late. 

The defense malpractice lawyers strategy was to blame the victim.  First, the lawyers claimed the man had a history of hypertension and "chronic noncompliance" in taking his blood-pressure medication.  Second, they claimed that could not have saved him even he had been timely diagnosed.   Suffice to say, the jury disagreed.

Oregon has raised the limits on malpractice and other negligence awards against public employees.  This new Oregon law restricts damages at $1.5 million to $3.5 million for state hospitals and clinics. The medical malpractice caps will rise to the $2 million to $4 million range for five years. 

The Southeast Texas Record has an interesting story about plaintiffs' medical malpractice attorney Valorie Davenport's motion for new trial in a malpractice lawsuit she lost in a failure to diagnose breast cancer case. One of the lawyer's ground for a new trial is the Southeast Texas Record tampered with the jury. 

"The acts (of distributing these periodicals to ... sitting jurors) constituted attempted jury tampering and probably resulted in the unjust verdict ... and requires that a new trial be granted," the motion states.

The whole things sounds completely crazy.  You can read the article on the case here.

Like Maryland, Oregon is seeing declining medical malpractice premiums for doctors. 

The DCBS Insurance Division found that doctors insured by Oregon's two largest medical malpractice insurers - Continental Casualty Company (CNA) and Northwest Physicians Insurance Company have experienced an average 18 percent rate decrease since 2005 (see chart below).  This is the exact same experience we have had in Maryland.  "In the earlier part of this decade, rising malpractice insurance costs were a significant concern for specialty doctors, particularly in rural areas, forcing many to leave the state," said Cory Streisinger, director of the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services. "The recent decline in rates should help Oregon continue to retain and attract highly skilled physicians."

Every state seems to have some doctors' lobbying group (MedChi in Maryland) that is always talking about how it is losing its doctors to some other state.  Nevada is another classic example of this.  The lobbyist for its doctors spent a ton of money to scare voters into enacting ridiculous caps on medical malpractice lawsuits. 

But my question is what state are all of the doctors going?  They have to go somewhere, right?