Report: High Malpractice Rates State's Own Fault

A public advocacy group is fighting the state's claims that medical malpractice rates are going up because of an increase in court litigation.

The New York Public Interest Research Group released a report Thursday asserting state doctors and medical insurance companies are attempting to limit patients' legal rights in a knee-jerk reaction to rising medical malpractice rates.

The state is wrongly attributing the rising rates to an increase in litigation, says NYPIRG.

According to NYPIRG's report, "there have been fewer medical malpractice payments in the past five years than in any five-year period on record."

Blame for the 14-percent hike in medical malpractice rates lies with none other than the state government, claims NYPIRG, after it held rates stagnant for eight years beginning in 1995 -- forcing current rates to spike in an attempt to catch up.

The state also dipped into its "rainy day fund" in the 1990s, taking nearly $700 million from the program covering high-risk doctors, says NYPIRG.

"The roots of any so-called crisis were planted by the state when it raided the insurance fund in the 1990s and then magnified the problem by refusing to grant increases to even keep up with inflation," said NYPIRG attorney Russ Haven.

"There's simply no evidence to support the fear-mongering by the medical and insurance lobbies that doctors are being driven from New York by an out-of-control victim compensation system."

NYPIRG accuses insurance lobbyists and state government of attempting to paint a picture of risky doctors and out-of-control medical malpractice rates in order to justify a state-run medical care system -- one that NYPIRG claims would "roll back patients' legal rights."

It is only a "tiny percentage" of doctors responsible for the overwhelming share of New York's medical malpractice payments, "yet these doctors' payments have been so massive that they and other losses have drowned the program in more than $500 million in red ink this decade."

"These losses, which state law requires commercial malpractice insurers to absorb on a shared basis, are largely responsible for the insurance companies' current financial problems," according to the report.

The report also accuses the state of failing to monitor doctors properly: "Poor patient safety and negligent oversight of bad doctors are dire problems in New York."

"The state suffers from a chronic recurrence of inexcusable errors, such as surgeries on the wrong limb, surgeries on the wrong patient and leaving foreign materials in patients. More than 550 deaths per year have been logged in the state's adverse incident reporting system, which itself is notoriously incomplete."

"Cashing in patients' legal rights for a state-run fund has proven to be a bankrupt idea," said Art Levin, director of the Center for Medical Consumers.

The report recommends that the state restore the nearly $700 million to the high-risk doctors' insurance fund; set an annual inflation-based minimum level for malpractice insurance increases, protecting against the boom-bust cycle; appoint a task force to recommend dramatic steps in improving patient safety; and keep a closer eye on high-risk doctors.