The State of Louisiana has a statuatory limitation on Med Mal awards of $500,000. The law further requires determination by a board of 6 members (3 from Plaintiff, 3 from Defendant) that determines a standards of care deficiency BEFORE a lawsuit can even be filed. Then the State of LA is required to pay any excess award over the first $100,000 (up to the $500,000 limit) from the LA Patient Compensation Fund. Thus the absolute limit of exposure for any Medical Professional for Med Mal is that first $100,000. Three things: 1.) With only $100,000 on the table, no Insuror can cost justify to mount a full blown Med Mal defense, so if the issue gets past the 6 member board, the Insuror just writes the check. 2.) The statute says that the State can only argue quantum on the excess $400,000, not liability, so if the Insuror folds on the first $100,000, tough luck for the State on the balance up to the $500,000 limit. 3.) THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE IN MED MAL PREMIUMS IN THE STATE OF LOUISIANA, EVEN WITH THE $100K LIMIT IN EXPOSURE! HOW CAN THAT BE???
Is it possible that perhaps we have more good doctors now than previously? Maybe there’s less need for serious sanctions?
This is just a poorly written article that reports a virtually worthless stastic. Next time they should try to compare the number of disciplinary actions to the number of doctors charged/accused of practicing “substandard” medicine.
As an afterthought, we might as well get used to substandard medicine if we’re going to have universal healthcare.
A stretch…justifies higher rates in the States with higher averages since they have the worst Doctors…or wait…justifies lower rates in States with higher averages since they catch the bad Doctors sooner..
My head is spinning…I better call my Doctor…oh wait I am in a bad Doctor state….
How do we know that there are bad doctors? They never rat on each other. If one is caught, he just has to move to another state. And that state is……Nevada. The State Med Boards are just like the State Bar Assns. They exist to protect their own.
Bingo. What determines the need for action? A med mal claim? Several claims? There is no factual information to back up any of the statements. Might as well just say in 2008 doctors were more likely to have blue shirts on compared to 2004 when they were more likely to wear white. Good stat, but what supports it?
Sometimes I really wonder who’s writing this stuff for IJ.
The states have the right to “make” doctors”. The states make engineers, barbers, contractors, harbor pilots, etcetera by establishing “boards”. An interesting thing about most board discipline is the topic of the discipline.
Most topics are not technical. Boards do not have access to settlements and some boards do not track court rulings. A famous example is the structural engineering disaster at the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City. The engineer board took no action to discipline the engineer of record until the victims took action against the board!
Boards do not have the expertise to insure their profession is technically proficient.
I agree this does not seem to have relevant data to back it up. At least when they rank insurance carriers they base it on the actually number of complaints against them. If they are talking about doctors with mal-pratice suits pending then maybe they have some facts they didn’t show in this article.
I agree with “me” (I like saying that.) The study takes as a given that doctors are as bad now as they were before, or are as bad in one state as in the next.
In fact, the actual study (on Public Citizen’s website) says:
“These data demonstrate a remarkable variability in the rates of serious disciplinary actions taken by the state boards. Once again, only one of the nation’s 15 most populous states, Ohio, is represented among those 10 states with the highest disciplinary rates. For the first time, the largest state in the country, California, is among the 10 states with the lowest rates of serious disciplinary actions. Absent any evidence that the prevalence of physicians deserving of discipline varies substantially from state to state, this variability must be considered the result of the boards’ practices. Indeed, the ability of certain states to rapidly increase or decrease their rankings (even when these are calculated on the basis of three-year averages) can only be due to changes in practices at the board level; the prevalence of physicians eligible for discipline cannot change so rapidly.”
Don’t just tell me that there’s no “evidence that the prevalence of physicians deserving of discipline varies substantially from state to state”, SHOW ME evidence that there IS NO substantial variability!
Public Citizen has taken a strong position with the support of flimsy statistics.
The doctors right now are out of control and really are aimed at acting like high-school kids were their white coat, secret maligning of patients, and Rx pad make them the bullies and the ill patients are stuck dealing with doctors who follow the ethical standards of children. Bureaucracy is all they understand and since that encourages them to act in a horrible way, they do. Losers! (obviously their are doctors who want to be productive and respectable and my comment does not include such people who exhibit a mature level of self control and professionalism.
Ummm…apparently they are basing these rankings on the ratio of discipline actions to number of Doctors in each State.
Seems to me that this is an adequate measuring stick. Not certain what would be an adequate measure of each States record in discipline…
The State of Louisiana has a statuatory limitation on Med Mal awards of $500,000. The law further requires determination by a board of 6 members (3 from Plaintiff, 3 from Defendant) that determines a standards of care deficiency BEFORE a lawsuit can even be filed. Then the State of LA is required to pay any excess award over the first $100,000 (up to the $500,000 limit) from the LA Patient Compensation Fund. Thus the absolute limit of exposure for any Medical Professional for Med Mal is that first $100,000. Three things: 1.) With only $100,000 on the table, no Insuror can cost justify to mount a full blown Med Mal defense, so if the issue gets past the 6 member board, the Insuror just writes the check. 2.) The statute says that the State can only argue quantum on the excess $400,000, not liability, so if the Insuror folds on the first $100,000, tough luck for the State on the balance up to the $500,000 limit. 3.) THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE IN MED MAL PREMIUMS IN THE STATE OF LOUISIANA, EVEN WITH THE $100K LIMIT IN EXPOSURE! HOW CAN THAT BE???
Is it possible that perhaps we have more good doctors now than previously? Maybe there’s less need for serious sanctions?
This is just a poorly written article that reports a virtually worthless stastic. Next time they should try to compare the number of disciplinary actions to the number of doctors charged/accused of practicing “substandard” medicine.
As an afterthought, we might as well get used to substandard medicine if we’re going to have universal healthcare.
What are we supposed to do with this information? Beat a bad doctor about his head and neck area with a wet policy booklet?
A stretch…justifies higher rates in the States with higher averages since they have the worst Doctors…or wait…justifies lower rates in States with higher averages since they catch the bad Doctors sooner..
My head is spinning…I better call my Doctor…oh wait I am in a bad Doctor state….
Doctors per capita by state:
The top…
Washington DC: 0.756 per 100 people
the middle…
California: 0.26 per 100 people
Florida: 0.253 per 100 people
the bottom…
Idaho: 0.171 per 100 people
How do we know that there are bad doctors? They never rat on each other. If one is caught, he just has to move to another state. And that state is……Nevada. The State Med Boards are just like the State Bar Assns. They exist to protect their own.
Bingo. What determines the need for action? A med mal claim? Several claims? There is no factual information to back up any of the statements. Might as well just say in 2008 doctors were more likely to have blue shirts on compared to 2004 when they were more likely to wear white. Good stat, but what supports it?
Sometimes I really wonder who’s writing this stuff for IJ.
The states have the right to “make” doctors”. The states make engineers, barbers, contractors, harbor pilots, etcetera by establishing “boards”. An interesting thing about most board discipline is the topic of the discipline.
Most topics are not technical. Boards do not have access to settlements and some boards do not track court rulings. A famous example is the structural engineering disaster at the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City. The engineer board took no action to discipline the engineer of record until the victims took action against the board!
Boards do not have the expertise to insure their profession is technically proficient.
What do you call a medical school graduate with the absolute worst grades in the history of medical education???
Answer: “Doctor”
I agree this does not seem to have relevant data to back it up. At least when they rank insurance carriers they base it on the actually number of complaints against them. If they are talking about doctors with mal-pratice suits pending then maybe they have some facts they didn’t show in this article.
I agree with “me” (I like saying that.) The study takes as a given that doctors are as bad now as they were before, or are as bad in one state as in the next.
In fact, the actual study (on Public Citizen’s website) says:
“These data demonstrate a remarkable variability in the rates of serious disciplinary actions taken by the state boards. Once again, only one of the nation’s 15 most populous states, Ohio, is represented among those 10 states with the highest disciplinary rates. For the first time, the largest state in the country, California, is among the 10 states with the lowest rates of serious disciplinary actions. Absent any evidence that the prevalence of physicians deserving of discipline varies substantially from state to state, this variability must be considered the result of the boards’ practices. Indeed, the ability of certain states to rapidly increase or decrease their rankings (even when these are calculated on the basis of three-year averages) can only be due to changes in practices at the board level; the prevalence of physicians eligible for discipline cannot change so rapidly.”
Don’t just tell me that there’s no “evidence that the prevalence of physicians deserving of discipline varies substantially from state to state”, SHOW ME evidence that there IS NO substantial variability!
Public Citizen has taken a strong position with the support of flimsy statistics.
The doctors right now are out of control and really are aimed at acting like high-school kids were their white coat, secret maligning of patients, and Rx pad make them the bullies and the ill patients are stuck dealing with doctors who follow the ethical standards of children. Bureaucracy is all they understand and since that encourages them to act in a horrible way, they do. Losers! (obviously their are doctors who want to be productive and respectable and my comment does not include such people who exhibit a mature level of self control and professionalism.