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Medical Liability Crisis - Fact Sheet
Illinois' Medical Liability Crisis is Threatening Our Hospitals and Patient Access to Care:
- In many areas of the state, physicians can no longer
afford or can no longer find medical liability insurance, and many are
dropping high-risk procedures, retiring early or leaving Illinois to practice in neighboring states.
Hospitals are facing unsustainable, escalating costs for self-insurance and
excessive jury verdicts and settlements.
- Illinois is one of 20 states named by the American Medical Association as "states in crisis" where medical care is seriously jeopardized by the medical liability crisis.
Medical Liability Premiums are Skyrocketing in Illinois, Both for Physicians and for
Hospitals:
- The annual medical liability premiums paid by the average Illinois hospital increased from $1.5 million in 2001 to $2.8 million in 2003 - an increase of 84% in just two years.
- With liability costs exploding, 70 percent of the hospitals in Illinois
are now either self-insured or insured by risk pooling trusts. Some hospitals
must set aside tens of millions of dollars each year for self-insurance and
medical liability payouts - scarce resources
that could be used for providing care to the indigent, hiring additional nurses,
obtaining new technology, or making facility improvements.
- One hospital system is paying medical liability costs for its Illinois
hospitals that are nearly five times higher than what its
hospitals in Wisconsin pay (which has caps on non-economic damages). [The
Illinois hospitals' liability cost per inpatient admission is about $95, while
the Wisconsin hospitals' is just over $20.]
- Illinois is one of the top three states in the nation with the highest
medical liability insurance premiums for physicians practicing internal
medicine, OB/GYN, and general surgery.
- Illinois OB/GYNs pay as much as $230,428 annually for liability coverage. Equivalent coverage is available for less than $60,000 in Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin.
Increases in Premiums are Caused by Excessive Jury Verdicts That Increase Dramatically
Each Year Without Any Predictability, as Well as Escalating Costs of Defending
Unwarranted or Frivolous Lawsuits:
- Insurance companies writing medical liability policies in Illinois are paying substantially more in claims than they receive in premiums.
- According to the Illinois Department of Insurance, Illinois insurers paid out $1.59 in medical liability claims and related expenses for every $1.00 they received in premiums in 2002.
All Regions of the State are at Risk - Physicians are Leaving the State or
Dropping High-Risk Procedures Because of Skyrocketing Medical Liability
Insurance Premiums - Jeopardizing Critical Services that Hospitals Provide to
Their Communities:
- Hospitals in Madison and St. Clair counties count more than 161 physicians
who have responded to the medical liability crisis by leaving their practices,
or announcing they will be gone by December 31, 2004.
- There is only one neurosurgeon south of Springfield to treat patients for
serious head injuries.
- In the Quad Cities area, some specialists have left the state for Iowa, and it is increasingly difficult to recruit new physicians. ISMIE, which also insures physicians practicing in Iowa, reports that Illinois premiums
for internists, OB/GYNs, and general surgeons are 200% to 400% higher than in Iowa.
- In trauma cases, such as head injuries from a
car accident, getting critical care in a timely manner is often the difference
between life and death:
- The number of trauma patients being transferred from
Illinois to St. Louis University Hospital has increased by more than 50
percent since 2002, an alarming trend that doctors attribute to steep
liability insurance rates driving specialists out of the area.
- Since June 2003, the number of patients being transferred
from St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Belleville to other hospitals for trauma
and neurosurgery has more than doubled.
- At Provena St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet, 32
transfers (an average of 5 per month) were made from the Emergency
Department between October 2003 and March 2004 because the services of a
brain surgeon were needed, but not available.
- In many areas of the state, physicians are
dropping OB privileges because the insurance costs are too high:
- Memorial Hospital, Chester closed its OB unit
on August 27, 2004, when the doctors who delivered the babies and provided
backup quit, after facing a 76% increase in malpractice insurance.
- Red Bud Regional Hospital discontinued
offering labor and delivery services on November 1, 2004, because current
obstetrics volumes are not sufficient to offset rising malpractice insurance
and operating costs.
- Sarah D. Culbertson Memorial Hospital, Rushville, no longer provides OB
services.
The Solutions: Meaningful Medical Liability Reforms for Illinois
Meaningful Medical Liability Legislation must include these critical reforms:
- Reasonable caps on non-economic damages that fairly compensate plaintiffs
and allow hospitals and physicians to have the resources to continue serving
their patients.
- Structured awards that will more efficiently and reliably pay for the
future medical care of injured patients (e.g. periodic payments such as
annuities).
- Real apparent agency reform to prevent hospitals from being unfairly drawn
into lawsuits against doctors and being held liable for medical errors that
they did not cause.
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