Malpractice Insurance: A Way Out?

The problem with malpractice insurance is its unavailability, at reasonable premium rates, to surgeons and physicians, especially orthopedic surgeons, plastic surgeons, neurosurgeons, and physicians working on emergency cases. The premiums for orthopedic surgeons can go well over $40,000 a year. Even the general practitioner, the doctor least exposed to malpractice suits, has to pay at least $3,000 a year for malpractice insurance.

In 1960, physicians and hospitals paid $61 million for malpractice insurance. The 1975 figure is expected to go above $1 billion. The number of malpractice claims continues to rise without any relationship to negligent or faulty medical or surgical care. Nearly $244 million was paid in premiums by hospitals and doctors in the state of New York alone last year. A report released a few months ago by New York Governor Carey’s Special Advisory Panel on Medical Malpractice predicted that premiums for hospitals and doctors will increase to nearly half a billion dollars in the next three or four years. All the costs of malpractice insurance are eventually translated into increased medical costs, both to the patient and, through Medicaid, to the taxpayer.

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Godfrey Schmidt

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The problem with malpractice insurance is its unavailability, at reasonable premium rates, to surgeons and physicians, especially orthopedic surgeons, plastic surgeons, neurosurgeons, and physicians working on emergency cases. The premiums for orthopedic surgeons can go well over $40,000 a year. Even the general practitioner, the doctor least exposed to malpractice suits, has to pay at least $3,000 a year for malpractice insurance.

In 1960, physicians and hospitals paid $61 million for malpractice insurance. The 1975 figure is expected to go above $1 billion. The number of malpractice claims continues to rise without any relationship to negligent or faulty medical or surgical care. Nearly $244 million was paid in premiums by hospitals and doctors in the state of New York alone last year. A report released a few months ago by New York Governor Carey’s Special Advisory Panel on Medical Malpractice predicted that premiums for hospitals and doctors will increase to nearly half a billion dollars in the next three or four years. All the costs of malpractice insurance are eventually translated into increased medical costs, both to the patient and, through Medicaid, to the taxpayer.