Malpractice Insurers Should Be Hearing Heavy Steps

Malpractice Insurers Should Be Hearing Heavy Steps

It warms my heart when an insurance regulator finally catches on to the disingenuous schemes of the industry supposedly being regulated. In the case of medical malpractice, we usually find that the medical societies are unwitting co-conspirators with insurers claiming doomsday scenarios if they do not receive special treatment under the law. Physicians should be screaming louder than patients and consumer groups. Not only are the insurers engaging in “legal” larceny but patients are being harmed in the process by virtue of reduced and more costly medical services.
The co-conspirators usually are seeking caps on damages, limits on the fees the attorneys can charge an injured victim and the creation of countless hurdles and mine fields calculated to diminish even meritorious healthcare lawsuits or at minimum, to arbitrarily limit the recovery that can achieved. In some circumstances, the insurers would continue to gouge the medical community. Occasionally, an alert public interest organization or civil servant catches on. News out of Florida is that the malpractice insurers have been exposed by the State Consumer Advocate and the Insurance Commissioner. Having achieved a cap on damages three years ago, the data on claim frequency and severity now shows that payments to injured parties have dropped 43.6 percent and the rates charged to doctors should be cut 40 to 50%.
Naturally, no one in state government in Florida is concerned about the victims of the malpractice whose recoveries have been limited arbitrarily. The scary thing is that insurance companies routinely engage in this form of skullduggery.